


Chaos Theory

by Rainne



Category: NCIS/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-02
Updated: 2014-01-17
Packaged: 2018-01-09 02:07:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 50,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1140176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainne/pseuds/Rainne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mistake by a magic student at the Slayer Academy has serious repercussions for a little-known federal agency in Washington, D.C.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Butterfly Effect

“The Butterfly Effect” is a phrase used by chaos theorists to encapsulate the technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions. It states quite simply that the beating of a butterfly’s wings near the Atlantic Ocean in the right place at the right time might create – or stop – a tornado near the Pacific. Or even farther away. Whether this effect actually exists remains to be proven.

What has been proven is Newton’s Third Law of Motion, which, simply put, states that to every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This holds true in both the physical and metaphysical worlds. Thus it should come as no surprise to anyone that, when a serious student of magic at a secret school in the Cotswolds flubs a spell intended to repair a small rift in the space-time continuum (one that’s been sucking small livestock in), an equal and opposite rift opens halfway across the world, in an empty elevator in an unassuming red brick building on the Washington Navy Yard.

This new rift is almost instantly closed again by the hapless student’s quicker-witted instructor, who immediately begins putting out magical feelers into the ether to determine what, if anything, the new rift may have disgorged before being closed. A half-second, Willow Rosenberg tells her chagrined student, is enough for a good-sized rift to vomit up a small army of zombies, or even a baby dragon.

Fortunately for the employees of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service’s headquarters, this particular rift vomited up nothing more dangerous than a lone human woman. The elevator she materialized in did not even shudder slightly in the merging of mystical forces.

Caitlin Todd, distracted by the PDA in her hand, does not even notice when she comes back from the dead.

 

“Hey, Giles, we’ve got a problem.”

The older, distinguished-looking British gentleman looked up from the book he’d been studying as a red-haired pixie of a young woman materialized – literally – in his office with bad news. “Oh, dear, Willow,” he says softly, rubbing his eyes. “What’s happened now?”

“Nothing major. I need a couple Slayers to go to D.C. with me for a couple of days. Remember that dimensional rift vortex thing?”

He nodded, sitting back in his chair. “You said you were going to have Jessica repair it.”

“Well, I did. But she didn’t.” Willow dropped into a chair across from him and gave him a weary smile. “Now I understand why you used to get so mad at me in high school whenever I screwed stuff up.” She paused. “Did I ever apologize for making you blind?”

He blinked in surprise. “Well, there were all those cookies…”

Willow shook her head, and Giles smiled to see how much she’d finally grown up. “Well, I’m sorry I did that to you,” she said softly. “I wish I’d apologized sooner. For a lot of things.” For a moment, her gaze turned distant, and he knew she was seeing something other than the very nice view out of his office window.

“Willow?” he asked gently, bringing her attention back to him. “You were saying, about the rift?”

“Oh! Right!” Willow laughed slightly. “Sorry. Yeah. Jessica tried to fix it, but she pulled too tight, and instead of re-seaming the fabric, she ripped it in another spot.”

“Bloody hell,” Giles swore, but not without a smile. “She’s just like you.”

Willow’s tired smile turned into a grin. “My mother always swore I’d have at least one. Anyway, I got it closed right behind her, but from the magical residue, I’m pretty sure something got through. I need to go find out what, and I’d kinda like some Slayer backup when I go.”

“Of course, Willow. Who’s on duty this week?”

“That’s the problem,” Willow said softly. “It’s Buffy.”

Giles pulled his glasses off and began to clean them with his handkerchief. “That would be a problem, wouldn’t it?”

 

The soft ding of the elevator sounded, and the doors slid open. Kate, engrossed in whatever notes were written in her PDA, did not notice the other activity in the office as she came out of the small space; she simply headed toward her desk with a single-minded sense of purpose. She knew she was going to be busy this week – Tony was still on sick leave after his bout with pneumonic plague – so she wanted to be ready to move as soon as she hit her chair.

Her chair. There was someone in her chair. She looked up, frowning at the dark-haired female figure sitting in her chair and staring at her computer screen. What the hell? “Excuse me,” she snapped. “Can I help you?”

The woman looked up at Kate with an expression of confusion. “Am I not intended to ask you that?” she said in a voice with a slight accent.

“Would you care to explain to me why you’re sitting at my desk?” Kate snapped.

The woman’s expression changed from confused to startled and wary. “I beg your pardon?” she replied. “This is my desk. It has been my desk for two years. Perhaps you are misplaced? I know that the second floor has the same layout as this floor. This is the third floor – Agent Gibbs’s office. I am Officer David.”

Kate stared at the woman, wondering if she was unbalanced or something. “I know perfectly well what floor this is, and whose office this is. And I don’t really care who you are, you’re sitting in my desk!”

The elevator dinged again, and Kate heard the sound of Tony and Gibbs chatting as they came off the elevator. Finally, someone who could help her! She turned toward them as they exited, and when they did not immediately look in her direction, focused as they were on the discussion between them, she called out. “Gibbs! Can you give me a hand here? This woman is at my desk insisting it’s hers, and she won’t leave!”

 

“I don’t work with Willow,” Buffy said flatly, stretching out on the pommel horse in preparation for her workout. “You know that.”

Giles sighed. Sometimes it was like teaching third grade. “I am aware of your preferences, Buffy, and also of your reasons for them. I hesitate to remind you, at the risk of our newly repaired friendship, that it was only recently that you became willing to work with myself again. But this is extremely important, and I am asking you… as a favor… please. We have no idea what came out of that rift, nor what dangers it may pose to its surroundings. This is a two to three day mission at the absolute outside. Please.”

Buffy stood and turned to face Giles. “All right,” she finally said softly, “under one condition.”

“Name it,” he replied promptly.

“You come along.”

“Buffy, really, I –” he began to protest.

“Non-negotiable. You come or I stay.”

Giles sighed again. “Very well. We will be leaving in an hour from my office.”

“Willow doing her travel mojo of doom again?”

“Yes.” He started toward the door. “She has a fix on whatever it is that came out of the rift; she’ll transport us directly to its location.”

“Is that a good idea? What if it’s something big?”

“It’s not,” Giles replied. “We can’t get a perfect fix on it, but whatever it is, it’s not much larger than you.”

“See you in an hour.” Buffy turned, abandoning the workout, and headed for her quarters to pack a bag.

 

For a long moment, there was complete silence in the bullpen. Gibbs and Tony stared helplessly at the angry woman in front of them. They both knew she was dead; neither one was able to believe their eyes and ears. Then Tony took a hesitant step backward. “Hey, Boss,” he said quietly, “I need you to tell me if you’re seeing what I think I might be seeing. Because if you’re not, I’ve gone off the deep end and somebody needs to take my gun, like now.”

“Tony,” Gibbs’s hoarse almost-whisper returned, “I think they’re gonna be taking both our guns, ‘cause there’s no way this is possible.”

Ziva sighed explosively. “I have no idea what the two of you are talking about, but could you _please_ explain to this woman that this is my desk and has been for over two years?”

Both men’s eyes went to Ziva immediately. “You see her, too?” Tony asked. “She’s really there?”

Ziva blinked, looked at the woman, then looked back at both of them as if they’d lost their minds. “Have you both gone crazy? Of course she’s there, and she’s driving me apples!”

“Bananas,” Tony corrected almost out of habit. He swallowed hard, then took a few steps forward. Oh, God, it even _smelled_ like her. He reached out a hand that shook and poked hard at the shoulder of the angry brown-eyed woman in front of him, who was also looking at him as if he was crazy and possibly dangerous.

“Ow! Tony! What the hell is wrong with you?”

When his hand did not go through her, as he’d almost expected, it clenched on her arm almost convulsively. “Oh, my God,” he breathed. “Kate.”

And Kate Todd’s eyes went wide and worried when he grabbed her and pulled her into a hug so tight she could barely breathe.

 

“All right, everyone, inside the circle.”

At Willow’s words, Buffy and Sofia, her young protégé, stepped into the magical circle on Willow’s workroom floor, followed by Giles and then by Willow. All four of them wore backpacks full of supplies. Buffy and Sofia both bristled with mostly-unseen weaponry.

Sofia, who at age twelve was the youngest Slayer at the new Academy, looked up at Buffy with nervous eyes. “Is… this safe?”

“Absolutely,” Buffy assured her with calm eyes and an even voice, even though deep inside, there were butterflies in her stomach that always surfaced any time she trusted Willow with anything magical – especially now.

The witch closed the circle and then the four people inside the circle joined hands, closing their eyes. Willow began to speak in a language Buffy did not know. She chanted for about thirty seconds before suddenly, with a sensation like being grabbed and thrown, the workroom vanished around them.

Buffy opened her eyes halfway through, and watched as their destination materialized in front of her. She saw that Sofia had her eyes open as well and made a mental note to praise the girl for her awareness. Then she blinked as things started to come into focus. They were in an office building. She gave a soft mental groan. There were going to be too many witnesses.

They arrived – Buffy knew they were there by the thumping of her feet against the carpet. She looked around quickly and was astonished to realize that no one was looking at them. Absolutely no one had noticed their arrival.

She took stock of the area quickly. They were in a cubicled office area which was looked down upon by a loft above. The stairs to the loft were off to her left with a wall behind them; farther to her right was another wall where several pictures hung around a logo which read “NCIS Most Wanted.” _NCIS? What’s that?_ She wondered idly, but had no time for further discussion, as she realized why no one had noticed their arrival.

In front of them, near a large bank of windows, a group of people was huddled around something that was – well, it looked like a brown-haired woman. They were all speaking excitedly, and the three men were taking it in turns to touch the woman, as though reassuring themselves that they were actually seeing what was before them. Another woman, also dark-haired but darker-complected, stood with the group but off to the side, slightly aloof in manner. She held herself like a Slayer, and Buffy wondered who she was.

She glanced around at her companions, and then stepped forward, approaching the group before her and clearing her throat softly. “Hi, sorry for interrupting, but if something really wiggy just went down, I think I’m the girl to help.”

 

The entire group turned as one when Buffy spoke, moving in unison as a concerted threat. Buffy raised her hands. “Whoa. Calm down.”

The oldest man spoke first, glaring at her with frozen blue eyes like ice chips. “Who the hell are you?”

Buffy sighed. “Is there anywhere we can go to talk in private?” She looked around significantly at the people walking around the room. “I’d kinda prefer less… witnesses.”

“You CIA?” the man demanded.

“Oh, hell no,” Buffy replied, making a face. “We don’t do government. My name is Buffy Summers, Mr…?”

“Special Agent,” he corrected flatly. “Gibbs.”

“Special Agent Gibbs,” Buffy repeated with a nod. “Can we _please_ go somewhere private? I promise, we’ll explain everything.”

Gibbs studied Buffy for a moment, and then nodded. “Conference room.” He led the way. Buffy noticed that he laid a hand in the small of the brown-haired woman’s back, almost as though he was afraid she would vanish if he wasn’t touching her. This must be what came through the portal. With a sideways glance at Willow, Buffy felt her anger rising. She’d stake her salary that this woman didn’t belong here. She gestured to Sofia, who took up her accustomed place to Buffy’s right. Willow and Giles followed along, and the little group found themselves surrounded by people carrying guns. No sudden movements, then.

Gibbs led them into a small conference room off the upper loft, and they packed in snugly before he shut the door and locked it. Then he turned to Buffy. “All right. Explain.”

Buffy sighed. “Thank you. First of all, my name is Buffy Summers, as I said. I’m a representative of the International Watcher/Slayer Coalition. We are a group of men and women who are dedicated to fighting evil in the world, only not the type that I take it you fight.”

“You take it?” Gibbs repeated, his voice as hard as his eyes.

Buffy gave him a slight smirk. “I know a cop when I see one – or when I’m surrounded by several.” She gestured to each member of her party. “This is my mentor, Rupert Giles, and my protégé, Sofia Trovatelli, and my associate Willow Rosenberg. The short and sweet version of things is that we monitor what you might call supernatural and paranormal activity worldwide, and when there is a problem, we fix it.”

“Such as what?” Gibbs asked, clearly not believing her.

Buffy shrugged. “Depends on the day. Demons vampires, rogue magic users, just about anything, as long as, like I said, it involves the paranormal. Regular stuff like murders and drugs, we don’t touch. That’s your jurisdiction.”

“I’m supposed to believe this?” Gibbs snapped.

Buffy shrugged again. “You don’t have to. But you seem to be having an issue here, and I’ve got an explanation. If you want it, I can give it to you, but you’re going to have to be willing to at least suspend your disbelief. If not… well, we’ll be more than happy to go back where we came from and let you work it out yourself.”

 

Gibbs studied the strange young woman and her strange associates who stood before him. They looked competent, and ready to handle whatever came before them – even the one introduced as Sofia, who couldn’t be more than twelve or thirteen. His well-trained eyes told him that three of the four were packing weaponry – the redhead, Willow, was the only one unarmed. But he was having trouble with the whole paranormal thing. His eyes crossed the room and met the tired eyes of the man in the group – Rupert Giles – who looked to be about Gibbs’s own age. “Is this true?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” the man replied in a soft, cultured British accent that sounded a little like Ducky. “I’m afraid it’s all very true. And we are possibly the only people in the world who can help you with your problem. But I’m also afraid that you’re going to have to tell us exactly what the problem is.”

“You mean you don’t know?” DiNozzo asked sharply. His eyes were flinty, and his expression promised mayhem if he didn’t get answers.

“Not precisely,” Rupert Giles replied. “We have a general idea, but we need the specific information from you.”

Gibbs made a decision. If they couldn’t make him happy, at least he could take them into custody or maybe shoot them. “All right,” he said firmly, sitting forward in his chair. He pointed to each member of his team in turn. “Special Agent DiNozzo. Special Agent McGee. Officer David. And this is Special Agent…” His voice caught for a second around words he never thought he’d say again. He cleared his throat. “This is Special Agent Caitlin Todd.”

He heard Ziva gasp as she recognized the name. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again, locking eyes with Kate as he spoke. “Special Agent Todd has been dead for over two years.”

Kate paled. “Gibbs! What the hell are you talking about? I’m not dead!”

“I can see that, Agent Todd,” Gibbs snapped in the old tone of command that had always made her pause. “But the fact remains that you _have been_ dead and now you’re suddenly not, and if these people can explain why, I will feel much better about not allowing myself to be locked up and hauled off to the psych ward at Bethesda!”

A shocked silence descended on the room, and Buffy spoke into it. “Returns from the dead. Hey, we can do that, right? Not like it’s our first time.” She glanced over at Giles. “Can you take over? I think I need a minute.”

Willow raised her hands helplessly, then let them drop. “I didn’t do it,” she whispered softly, but Buffy was clearly beyond hearing; her face had gone red and she unlocked the door, pushing herself out of the room and shutting the door behind her.

Sofia looked up at Giles. “Should I go with her?” she asked tentatively.

Giles shook his head. “She needs to be alone right now,” he said gently. Then he looked up at Gibbs. “I apologize, but returns from the dead strike a very harsh chord with Buffy… after her own.”

 

Willow explained about the problem in the space-time continuum in the closest terms to quantum physics she could; she found herself explaining almost directly to Special Agent McGee, who translated the binary of the information she gave him into English that his coworkers could understand. About halfway into the explanation, the door opened and an almost inhumanly calm Buffy had quietly asked Kate to accompany her out in the hallway. Before leaving, she had turned preternaturally wise eyes on Gibbs and promised in a low and sincere voice that she would bring Kate back.

The next hour or so was a blur of information, but by the time it was over, Gibbs and his team had been introduced to the world of magic and demons. They knew about vampires and Slayers and witches, and they understood – at least, McGee understood, and the others were confident with his understanding – about the rift that had accidentally summoned up Kate Todd from the ether and deposited her back in his life.

Gibbs wasn’t comfortable with the knowledge, and was fairly sure none of his team were either, but he would accept it if it meant that he wasn’t crazy and that Kate truly had come back. He didn’t often get second chances, and he was damned if he was going to lose this one.

 

Abby was comparing some bullet striations when some niggling sense caused her to look up and out of the windows at the top of her main lab room. She watched two pairs of legs walk past the windows. One wore khaki pants and a pair of well-broken-in brown Doc Martens; the other wore pantyhose and a pair of sensibly low-heeled pumps. She couldn’t figure out what it was about those hose-clad legs that was so familiar, but she kept her eyes glued to them as they walked, until they were out of her field of view. Feeling faintly unsettled, she returned to her striations.

 

When Kate stepped out into the hallway, Buffy closed the door behind them and said quietly, “Is there someplace we could go and talk? Maybe someplace outside or something?”

“Sure,” Kate replied. “Unless they’ve changed it, since I’ve apparently been gone for two years.” She led the way down in the elevator and out a back entrance, then down a sidewalk and out into a sunny area where a picnic table sat under a tree. “Abby and I eat lunch here all the time. Or… well… I guess we _ate_ lunch here all the time. God, this is weird.”

“I know,” Buffy replied. “Believe me, I know.” She sat down on top of the table and looked down, studying her hands. “When I… when they brought me back… they did it to me on purpose, though, not like this… you… you were an accident. For which I want to apologize, even though I know that apologies can’t make up for what you’ve lost… but nobody ever apologized to me, and I know what it would have meant.”

“What I’ve lost?” Kate asked quietly. “Buffy, I haven’t lost anything. Except time, maybe, and probably all of my stuff. But I can get new stuff.” She shrugged slightly.

Buffy raised haunted eyes to Kate. “You don’t remember… being dead?”

Kate shook her head. “No. For me, yesterday was May the seventeenth, 2005. Only today, Gibbs says it’s August of 2007.”

“The fourteenth,” Buffy replied, nodding. She sat back, leaning her weight on her hands behind her, and looked up at the sky. “I was gone for about four months,” she said quietly, “and when I came back, everything was different.”

Kate sat down next to Buffy. “What do you mean?” she asked curiously.

“Everything was different. My sister was angry all the time, acting out. My friends were weird… distant. Giles… Giles was gone, and he came back, but then he left again because I wasn’t dealing. I couldn’t deal. I’d been in Heaven, and they dragged me out of it kicking and screaming, and when I woke up, I was in my coffin.”

Kate felt sick. She couldn’t even imagine what that must have been like. “I’m so sorry,” she finally said for lack of any other words.

Buffy turned a haunted smile on her. “Do you know that you’re the first person to say that to me?”

Kate stared at her. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.” Buffy shook her head. “It’s been years, and even though I lied at first, trying to spare their feelings, they found out the truth… they know where I was; they know what they did to me. And none of them ever apologized. And two of them are dead now.” She sighed, looking up at the sky again. “It’s gonna be hard,” she finally continued. “it’s gonna be freaksome. All your friends are gonna be weird. I don’t know if you have any family or not, but if you get back in touch with them, that’s gonna be a super-sized dose of wig. Nothing will ever be the same again, for you or for your friends and family. But… even so… you’re lucky.”

Kate raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

“You don’t remember Heaven,” Buffy whispered. “And something tells me that guy Gibbs wouldn’t leave you even if you tried to chase him off.”

They sat in silence for a time, and then Kate spoke again. “So… what exactly is it that you do?”

Buffy sat up, leaning her elbows on her knees. “I’m a Slayer. It’s my job to kill the things that go bump in the night: vampires, demons, stuff like that.”

“So, like, a demon cop?”

Buffy laughed. “Kinda, yeah.”

“Something tells me you don’t carry a Sig Sauer.”

“Something tells me you’re right.” Buffy grinned and began producing weaponry from about her person: a garrotte, a stake, a couple of knives, and a collapsible half-size crossbow. “I’ve never used a gun,” Buffy confessed. “They’re not my thing. I’ve been shot once, though, and I gotta tell you, I’d rather not do that again.”

“It’s not the most fun thing I can think of, either,” Kate agreed. She watched with interest as Buffy returned all her weapons to their hiding places, and then something struck her. “Oh, crap.”

Buffy looked up. “What?”

Kate flushed slightly. “We’re stuck out here.” She gave a weak grin. “It just occurred to me that, if I’m dead, it’s not like I can go back in through the front door. And you certainly can’t, with all those weapons.”

Buffy reached into her pocket, and sighed. “And my cell phone is upstairs in my bag. Oh, great.”

They sat for a moment longer, and then Kate snapped her fingers. “Abby.”

“No, Buffy.”

Kate snickered. “No. Abby’s lab has windows. If we go tap on her window, we can get her to come up and let us in.”

“Yeah, but if I go tap on her window, will she let me in? ‘Cause if she sees you, she’s gonna flip completely out.”

“Good point.” Kate chewed on her lip. “Well, it’s worth a shot, I guess. If nothing else, you can get her to call Gibbs to let us in.”

Buffy nodded. “All right. Let’s head back. Gibbs is probably frothing right now, wanting to know where you are.”

Kate nodded, smiling slightly. “He’s a little protective of us.”

“That’s good,” Buffy said softly. “Every team needs someone to watch out for them.”

“Who watches out for you?” Kate asked without thinking, and wished she could swallow the question back down when Buffy didn’t immediately reply.

Finally, Buffy sighed. “I do,” she said. “I watch out for me, and I watch out for Sofia.”

Kate put a hand on Buffy’s shoulder and felt the words spill out of her with all the impulsive sympathy that Gibbs was always chastising her for. “I’ll watch out for you,” she offered quietly.

Buffy paused in her stride, studying Kate’s face and examining her sincerity. She couldn’t understand why she felt such a bond with this woman, unless it was the shared experience of coming back from the dead, but it was undeniably there. Buffy nodded, taking Kate’s hand and shaking it firmly. “We’ll watch out for each other,” she said definitively.

 

Abby was between tasks when the tap came at her window. She turned, looked up, and saw the combat boots and khaki pants she’d noticed earlier, now attached to a torso that was clad in an olive green halter top and an unbuttoned white shirt, all of which belonged to a blonde woman who had that friendly-but-seriously-dangerous look that Ziva wore a lot. She cocked her head. “Can I help you?” she called out.

“Yeah,” the woman’s voice came back, muffled. “I got stuck out here. Any chance I can get you to come around and let me in?”

Abby pointed in a general direction. “Just go back in through the front.”

“No can do,” the woman replied. She paused, looking behind her, and then leaned down again. “Okay, and there’s someone out here who needs to talk to you. You are Abby, right?”

Abby took a step back from the window. This was definitely hinky. “Who are you?”

“My name is Buffy Summers,” the woman replied. “Call your guy Gibbs, he’ll vouch for me.”

Abby’s hand went immediately to the telephone and she dialed. The voice on the other end sounded distracted and harried. “Yeah, Gibbs.”

“Gibbs? It’s Abby. There’s a woman knocking on my window. She says her name is Buffy Summers, and she wants me to come out the back and talk to her.”

“Oh, Abs… I got so distracted.” There was a pause as Gibbs took a breath, and then spoke in his firmest, most reassuring voice. “Okay. Yeah. Go talk to her. I’ll come down in a few minutes. Okay?”

“Gibbs… what’s going on? You’re starting to freak me out.”

Gibbs gave a slight, humorless bark of laughter. “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he said cryptically. “Go ahead, Abs. Go talk to her.”

Even more nervous now than she had been before, Abby left her lab and went around to the back exit. She opened the door, and Buffy Summers was standing there, alone, holding a brick. Abby started to jump back, but Buffy held out the brick. “Here, put this in the door so it doesn’t shut again.”

Abby reached for the brick and Buffy handed it to her, so Abby chocked the door open and stepped outside. “All right,” she said, “I’m here. But Gibbs sounded really hinky on the phone, so I’m a little freaked out right now.”

Buffy smiled slightly. “My name is Buffy Summers, Abby, like I said… and I’m here to help. Something has happened, something pretty major and definitely of the freaksome, and you had to see it for yourself or you’d never believe it.”

Abby was really starting to worry. “What is it? Is someone dead?”

Buffy laughed softly. “Actually, the opposite. C’mere.” She stepped away from Abby, moving out of the covered alcove where the door was hidden and out into the sunlight.

Abby, by now as intrigued as she was worried, followed her. She took two steps past the edge of the building and stopped. Buffy pointed. “Behind you.”

Abby turned, and stared.

Kate smiled. “Hey, Abs.”

Abby felt the tears well up in her eyes and couldn’t stop them. “No. No, not again. I can’t do this again.”

That wasn’t the reaction Kate was expecting. She stepped forward slightly. “Can’t do what, Abs?”

Abby pressed a hand to her mouth. “No,” she whispered. “You’re not real, you can’t be real.”

“I am, though,” Kate said in a soft tone, reaching out one hand. “Touch me. You’ll see. I… I know I’m a shock, but… I’m real.”

Abby backed away from Kate and turned to run, but Buffy was behind her almost faster than Kate could see her move. She put her hands on Abby’s shoulders, turning her back to face Kate. “It’s real, Abby,” Buffy said softly, holding onto the dark-haired woman gently but firmly. She nodded to Kate, who moved forward and took Abby’s hands gently.

“See, Abby?” Kate asked. “I’m real.”

“No, you’re not, you’re not, you’re dead!” Abby exclaimed, sounding almost exasperated. “You can’t be real. You can’t. It isn’t possible.”

“Actually it is,” Buffy said in a reasonable tone.

Abby’s head snapped up and she turned, seeming to realize for the first time that Buffy was there. “What are you talking about?” she asked incredulously.

Buffy smiled slightly. “It is possible for the dead to come back to life. I mean, it doesn’t happen very _often_ , but it does happen.” She kept her tone neutral but firm, and it seemed to get through to Abby where gentleness was just making the taller woman cry.

Abby turned back to Kate, wiping at the tears on her face. “Are you… really back? You’re really here? Like, permanently? This isn’t a dream or a five-minute thing or something hinky like that?”

“No,” Kate said softly. “I’m really here. As much as I was before.”

A moment later, Abby was wrapped around Kate, hugging her as hard as she could, and weeping tears of joy. Buffy retreated to the picnic table, watching the reunion but giving the two friends their privacy. A few minutes later, she saw a silvered head poke around the doorway. Abby and Kate were not in Gibbs’s field of vision, but Buffy was, and she waved him over. As he approached, she pointed to the patch of grass where the two friends were sitting against the wall, hands clasped in hands, as Kate tried to explain what little she knew to Abby.

Gibbs approached Buffy cautiously and stood next to her, watching Kate and Abby. “She take it okay?” he finally asked.

“Cried a little,” Buffy replied. “I kind of expected that; they always do. But then she was okay with it. She seems to bounce back from stuff pretty well.”

“Yep.”

After a few minutes of silence, Buffy said, “Why don’t you sit down? You’re giving me a cramp in my neck.”

He turned and looked down at her. “Short, aren’t you?”

“I make up for it in other ways.”

Gibbs barked out a laugh. “Bet you do.” He sat next to Buffy. “So you’re a Slayer.”

“Giles told you what that means.” It wasn’t a question, but Gibbs nodded anyway. “You okay with it?”

“Don’t know.” Gibbs leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Not sure I buy it a hundred percent.”

“Any time you want a demonstration, just let me know,” Buffy said, leaning back into the sunlight again. She glanced over at him. “I’m sorry for the disruption in your life.”

He turned and stared at her. “What?”

Buffy nodded. “I am. The world I live in is an ugly one and it bothers me when it intrudes in the lives of normal people who shouldn’t have to know about this stuff. The kind of badness you deal with is bad enough; you shouldn’t have to deal with my kind of badness, too.”

Gibbs looked from Buffy to Abby and Kate, who were now giggling at one another through shared tears, and back to Buffy. “You telling me you’re _sorry_ Kate came back from the dead?”

Buffy opened her mouth to reply, thought better of it, and shook her head. “No. I told Kate I was sorry she had to go through this, and I am. I’ve been there, and it’s not something I’d wish on anyone. It’s a nightmare you don’t ever wake up from. Am I sorry that you got your friend back? No. From your perspective, I’m sure it’s a dream come true.”

Gibbs studied her. “That guy, Giles, he said this happened to you.”

Buffy nodded. “I died. About six years ago. I was dead for four months, and my so-called friends brought me back from the dead. It wasn’t like this for me. Kate doesn’t remember dying. She doesn’t remember being dead, being in Heaven, any of that. I do. I dream about it every night.” Buffy wrapped her arms around herself. “Kate doesn’t remember. I can’t forget.”

They fell silent, both of them watching the reunion of best friends that was going on by the wall, wrapped in their own thoughts.

 

It was Kate. It was Kate, looking just like she had before she died. Abby couldn’t quite keep her hands to herself; she held Kate’s hand tightly and occasionally reached out to touch her face in slight disbelief. She listened to Kate explain what she knew about what had happened, but the confusion in Kate’s voice was obvious. As hard a time as Abby was having believing that Kate was back, Kate was having that much trouble or more with the fact that she’d been gone. Kate referenced things that had happened years ago as though they’d just happened last week, like Tony having the plague. For Kate, she had simply stepped out of the elevator three years into the future.

Abby didn’t know what she’d done to deserve having Kate back, but she wished she did so she could do it again and again. There was in the back of her mind a small terror that any moment now, she would wake up, but she didn’t, and Kate kept being there.

She was in the middle of telling Kate about something Ziva had done when a shadow fell over them. It was Gibbs, with that soft smile on his face that Abby hadn’t seen since Kate died. “Hate to interrupt,” he said, “but there’s something we’ve gotta do.”

Abby clenched Kate’s hand convulsively. “What?”

“Ducky doesn’t know, yet, Abs,” Gibbs explained. He jerked his head toward Buffy, who was standing behind him and slightly to the side, still unwilling to interrupt the reunion. “Something she said made me think of it.”

“Oh, God! Ducky!” Abby jumped to her feet, still holding Kate’s hand, and helped Kate up.

Kate brushed at the grass on her skirt and sighed slightly. “I feel like a show-and-tell exhibit.”

“You’re gonna feel that way for awhile,” Buffy said quietly, falling into step with her on the other side of Abby. “And you’ll be checking your buttons, your fly and your teeth for months, because everybody’s gonna stare at you.”

Kate sighed. “I’m gonna go crazy.”

“It’s possible. I did.” Buffy shrugged as they entered the building, kicking the brick out of the doorway and shutting the door firmly behind herself.

The others were looking at her, two sets of eyes worried and one intrigued. “Did you, really?” Kate asked, looking as though she thought it might be a viable option.

Buffy nodded. “It’s the best explanation I can think of for what happened.” She thought of Spike, shuddered slightly, and then shrugged. “So, yeah. But you probably won’t.”

“Why not?”

Buffy smiled slightly for the first time since arriving at NCIS. “Because you’re stronger than I am. And I was already a little crazy before I died.”

Abby blinked. “You were dead, too?”

“Long story, Abs,” Gibbs interrupted. “Let’s go see Ducky.”

Buffy tagged along because she didn’t know her way back to wherever Giles, Willow and Sofia might be. They entered an elevator and went down a floor, exiting into a dead-end hallway with only one door. Buffy knew a morgue when she saw one through the glass of the windows and sighed slightly as Gibbs spoke.

“Stay here a second,” he said. He walked up to the doors, which slid open on his approach, and entered. “Hey, Duck,” they heard him say before the doors shut behind him. They waited.

 

Ducky looked up from his current autopsy. “I’m afraid I haven’t got anything for you yet, Jethro,” he began, but Gibbs waved his words away.

“I know, Duck,” Gibbs said. “Got something for you.”

“Oh? What might that be?”

Gibbs waved at his gloves, face mask and bloody scrub apron. “Might want to take those off.”

Intrigued, Ducky stripped out of his autopsy gear, washed his hands quickly, and approached Gibbs. “What is it, Jethro? Has something happened upstairs?”

“Yeah, Duck,” Gibbs said quietly, pulling out a chair. “Sit down.”

Ducky clutched at Gibbs’s arm. “What’s happened?”

“Sit down, Duck,” Gibbs repeated more firmly. Ducky sat, and Gibbs gave him a slight smile. “Don’t want you falling over.” He stepped back and gestured come-here through the window.

Abby came in first, followed by a blonde woman Ducky had never met before. The blonde woman stopped at the doorway, stepping to the side, and then…

Ducky rose from his chair, his face going pale. “Caitlin…?”

Kate smiled. “Hey, Ducky.”

He made his way over to her, unsteady on his pins for the first time in a number of decades. “But how? How is it possible? I did your autopsy!” His fingers came up to brush against her forehead, where there should have been a screaming black hole. He found only smooth, warm flesh. With shaking hands, he brushed her jacket aside and stared at the expanse of collarbone visible under the scoop neck of her blouse. The Y-incision had been right there… but there was no evidence of it. Not even a scar. He stared into her warm, living eyes. “How?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

Kate looked over her shoulder at the blonde woman, who cleared her throat apologetically. “It’s kind of a long story,” she began, “but I’ll try to give you the short version. My name is Buffy Summers, and I’m –”

Ducky spun to face her. “Buffy Summers?”

Buffy blinked. “Yes?”

“Of the Council of Watchers?”

“International Watcher/Slayer Coalition,” Buffy corrected him. “The original Watcher’s Council was destroyed in 2003.”

“Oh, my, yes, I’m well aware.” Ducky stepped toward Buffy, giving her a slightly bloodthirsty smile. “I did Quentin Travers’s autopsy myself.”

Buffy blinked, and gave a short laugh. “Somehow I get the feeling you didn’t like him any more than I did.”

“Not even a jot,” Ducky confirmed. “I knew him at Eton, you see. Insufferable prig. So,” he segued, glancing back at Kate and then looking at Buffy, “your lot is mixed up in all this, are they? What’s been done?”

Buffy gave a slight grin. “I take it back – it won’t be a long story at all. One of our magic students was supposed to be closing a rift, but she pulled on the fabric of reality too hard, so when she fixed it in England, she tore it here. Her instructor was able to repair it almost immediately, but Kate got out before Willow could stop her.”

Ducky turned wise eyes on Kate. “Oh, my dear,” he whispered, “I cannot imagine how hard you must have been trying to come back to us.” He went to her and wrapped her in a hug. “We have missed you so very much.”

Gibbs was looking at Ducky strangely. “What do you mean, trying to come back to us?”

“Oh, Jethro, isn’t it obvious?” Ducky let go of Kate and assumed a lecture position. “Very often, when the dead have unfinished business on this plane, they search for ways to return. Most of them manifest as simple things – energy pulses, cold spots, that sort of thing. Genuine hauntings occur when one of them is particularly determined. But to actively be seeking out a chance to truly cross over, to truly return, and to be so aware of it as to find it when that one coincidental opening should crop up, why, the chances are astronomical.”

“Not following, Duck.”

Buffy took a deep breath. “I’m not the magic expert; that would be Willow. But I think what he’s saying is that what’s happened here ought to be impossible, even in a world that allows for magic and demons.” She raised an eyebrow at Ducky, who nodded, and she continued. “He’s saying that, even though Kate doesn’t remember being dead, she _was_ dead, and the whole time, she was actively searching for and fighting for a way to come back.” Her voice dropped to a near whisper. “He’s saying she didn’t want to be dead, and she did what she had to do to come back. She wanted it.”

 

Giles breathed a sigh of relief when the large group reassembled in the conference room with the addition of two new people, one of whom he recognized. “Dr. Mallard?”

“Mr. Giles?”

The two Englishmen shook hands. “Why, how lovely to see you again,” Giles said. “Have you been well? You’re looking quite fit.”

“I have. You, however, are looking in need of a vacation. I hope you’re not letting these girls drive you to distraction.”

“Duck. Catch up later.” Gibbs took charge, looking at Buffy. “What happens now?”

Buffy took a breath. “Well, we weren’t really expecting a human. We were planning on killing a monster and getting the hell out of here. And this is the first time we’ve had anything like this happen, so we’re kind of setting precedent.” She glanced over at Giles quizzically. He nodded once, and she turned back to Gibbs. “What I’d like to do is bring Kate back to England with us for awhile, just to make sure that… everything’s okay.”

Giles cleared his throat. “What Buffy means is that we have counseling facilities available to help Kate adjust to the sudden change in her life. We can also provide her paperwork, since it is very difficult to explain to one’s government that one has returned from the dead and far easier simply to build a new identity.” He tossed an apologetic expression at Kate. “If, that is, you are willing. If not, you are certainly welcome to take whatever path you see fit.”

Kate’s eyes got huge. “How long?” she asked, her eyes flicking from Buffy to Giles to Gibbs and back to Buffy.

“In England?” Buffy clarified. “As long as you want to stay. If you decide you want to come back tomorrow, we’ll bring you back tomorrow.”

Kate looked over at Abby, who looked like she was clamping down on a desperate plea not to leave, and at Gibbs, who was carefully expressionless. Her eyes tracked to Tony, who was watching her desperately, as though she might vanish at any moment, and then to Ziva, who stood behind him, her eyes hooded. McGee stood behind Abby, his hand gripping her shoulder, and looked as desperate as Abby did. Their need suddenly felt suffocating to Kate, who looked back over at the strangers.

Willow looked lost and sad, Giles looked comforting, Buffy looked determined and compassionate, and the little girl Sofia looked excited and fascinated. Kate swallowed. “I’ll come with you,” she said quietly. “For a couple of days, at least.”

Abby made a small sound of pain, and Kate reached over and took her hand. “I’ll call every day, okay?” she said softly. “And I’m coming back. I promise.”

Gibbs cleared his throat. “Not going by yourself.”

Kate raised her eyes and studied his face. It was still expressionless, but she could see something in his eyes that got her attention quickly. “Are you coming with me?”

“We don’t have any hot cases, and it’s Friday. Yeah. I’m coming.”

 

They decided to leave from Gibbs’s house, since he needed to pack and there wasn’t anywhere at NCIS headquarters with enough room for Willow to work her mojo anyway. Transportation was tricky at first, and ended with the entire team in Gibbs’s back yard, watching Willow set up her circle. She tried to ignore them, but they were making her nervous. Actually, the whole situation was making her nervous. Having a human come through the rift, having to work with Buffy, being in the States again after so long, being around people who didn’t know about magic again after five years of not leaving the coven… everything was making her nervous, and she was ready to go home.

She finished making the circle and sat down in the middle of it to meditate, calming herself so she wouldn’t flub the teleport spell. The last thing she needed to do was set them all down on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge or something equally stupid. She closed her eyes, focused on the sunlight and the feel of the earth, and let the whispers of the strangers wash off her awareness.

Buffy turned away from the kitchen window and narrowed her eyes at Giles. “Double check her,” she said flatly. “She’s so nervous out there she’s practically making _my_ palms sweat.”

Special Agent DiNozzo – Tony, he had said to call him – came in just as she said that, and his eyes flicked from her to Giles’s form going out the back door. “Is this entirely safe?”

Buffy shrugged, leaning back against the counter and crossing her arms. “Giles trusts her, and I trust Giles.”

“But you don’t trust her,” Tony intuited.

“She used to be my best friend. Then six years ago, she dragged me out of Heaven and left me to dig myself out of my own coffin,” Buffy replied frankly. “And two years ago she killed my sister. No, I don’t trust her. Under ordinary situations, I don’t work with her. This was an emergency. I made Giles come along in case she screws something up.”

“She killed your sister?” Tony’s expression was shocked.

Buffy nodded, her jaw tightening. “It’s hard to explain. The short version is, my sister was created out of a mystical object and inserted into my life, but she was still my sister and I loved her. Willow thought she could separate my sister from that object; she was wrong. Now I have no sister. I do have a nifty green paperweight, though. Or I would, if it wasn’t locked up in a secure vault on a different plane of existence.”

Tony studied her, then suddenly reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

She looked up at him in surprise. “Wow.”

“What?”

“You’re the second person today who’s told me they were sorry. Do you know, that’s two people more than have said that to me in the last six years? What’s up with that?”

He gave her a mega-watt grin. “Sensitivity training,” he explained. “We have to go once a year.”

Out in the back yard, Giles’s head jerked up in surprise at the long-missed sound of Buffy’s laughter.

 

By the time Gibbs was packed, Willow was ready. Everyone shouldered their bags except Kate, who had none. “Don’t worry,” Buffy told her in an aside. “I’ll take you shopping in London and we’ll rebuild your wardrobe.”

They stepped into the circle: Kate, then Gibbs, then Buffy, Sofia, and Giles. Willow followed them in and closed the circle. “Call when you get there!” Tony exclaimed, grinning his biggest, silliest grin.

“Ziva,” Gibbs said. Ziva reached up and slapped Tony on the back of the head. Buffy snickered. Willow began to chant.

With a sensation like being picked up and thrown, Buffy watched Gibbs’s back yard vanish around them. Moments later, she felt her feet touch the stone floor of Willow’s work room. Gibbs pulled out his cell phone and dialed. “We’re here,” he said simply.

“Wow, Boss,” Buffy heard Tony say through the phone. “That was fast.” Gibbs simply hung up.

Buffy turned to the visitors and smiled. “Welcome to the Slayer Academy.”


	2. The Butterfly Effect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate comes to terms with her return from the dead, Buffy is granted an opportunity for a new start.

Buffy clambered into the window seat in her office, pulling her legs up under herself and staring out into the English afternoon. Just a few feet away, on the opposite end of the seat, Caitlin Todd was doing the exact same thing. “It’s pretty out there,” Kate commented.

Buffy nodded. “I like it,” she said simply.

The view was, in a word, majestic. The rolling, sheep-dotted hills in the distance were lined with brilliant green forests. Off to the west, the village of Castle Combe could just be seen as a cluster of honey-colored buildings. Closer up, the Academy’s estate – what had once been the site of the Council retreat to which Giles had long ago coveted an invitation – was laid out picturesquely below them: a scattering of buildings built from the native honey-colored limestone, with paths laid of the same stone winding amongst them and dotted by trees, park benches, ponds and fountains. Girls and women of all ethnicities wandered the grounds, some alone, others in groups. A handful of men could occasionally be seen as well; Watchers who survived the apocalypse and were willing to return under the new regime. 

“It’s very peaceful,” Kate remarked.

Buffy nodded. “This is our safe space,” she explained. “The world outside is a pretty dark and depressing place; we come here to kind of… get our humanity back, I guess.”

“How long have you been doing this?”

“Me, personally? Since I was fifteen. So… thirteen years. Giles says I’m the longest-lived Slayer on record.” She smiled slightly at the window. “Even with the four-month break.”

Kate glanced across the room at the eastern window, where Gibbs stood staring out at more of the same beautiful landscape, his back to her. His overcoat was tossed onto a nearby chair, and his shoulders were tense under his dark plum Henley shirt. She sighed slightly. He had changed so much in what seemed to her to be the space of a day; that if nothing else had convinced her that something was seriously wrong. The lines on his face were deeper than before, and his eyes were harder. He smiled less, though he never failed to smile when he looked at her. There was just something about him, some air that spoke of anger and pain and loss, and she wondered how much of that had been caused by her.

Kate started to say something else, but was interrupted by the opening of the office door. An older woman bustled in, dressed in a no-nonsense black dress and crepe nurse’s shoes. She was carrying a heavily-laden tray. Buffy unfolded herself from her corner and stood up. “Thank you, Mrs. Wellingsley. Here, let me help you with that.”

“Nonsense, child, nonsense. It’s a poor housekeeper I’d be if I was needin’ help with a tea tray for only three.” She set the tray easily on the coffee table in the center of the office. “Now, I’ve brought your favorite – the scones and jam, and the clotted cream as well, and you’ll eat them today, understand?” The accent was Irish and the tone severe.

Buffy smiled slightly. “Yes, Mrs. Wellingsley.”

“Good. Now, Mr. Giles says you are taking Miss Todd to Bath this afternoon? I’ve arranged a car for you after tea.” Mrs. Wellingsley leaned forward conspiratorially. “You might be wantin’ to take your supper in the city tonight.”

Buffy blinked. “Oh, God,” she said with an expression of disgust. “Black pudding tonight?”

“And a haggis, my dear.” Mrs. Wellingsley winked. “So I’ll be lettin’ Mr. Giles know you’ll be late gettin’ back, shall I?”

“Sounds like a plan, Mrs. Wellingsley.” Buffy gave her a ghost of a smile. “Thank you.”

“Not at all, my dear, not at all. Enjoy your tea, my dears, and call Geoffrey when you’re ready for the car.” She patted Buffy’s cheek in a grandmotherly way, bustled out again, and could be heard shouting at someone down the hall as Buffy closed the door behind her.

Around the coffee table were four large, comfortable-looking chairs; Buffy dropped into one and reached for the pot in the center of the tray, opening the top and sniffing. “Mrs. Wellingsley, you’re a goddess.” She looked up. “Who wants Turkish coffee?”

Kate was out of the window and into a chair faster than even she had realized she could move, and Gibbs turned from the window with interest on his face. “Turkish? Strong stuff.”

Buffy grinned. “As our chief gardener says, it’ll put hair on your chest.” She began to pour into the three cups on the tray, added cream and sugar to her own, and sat back with the cup clenched in her hands as though trying to warm her fingers.

Gibbs came over and sat down, studying her as he picked up his own cup. “You cold?”

Buffy sighed. “I’m always cold.”

“What’s black pudding?” Kate asked to change the subject.

“It’s entirely gross,” Buffy replied, a slight smile crossing her face. “It’s like a sausage with meat and barley in it, but the main ingredient is blood. Which, if you think about it, is really not an appropriate thing to feed a vampire slayer.” She shuddered. “It’s really disgusting, and Mrs. Wellingsley always warns me about it so I can go eat in town.”

Gibbs snitched a jam-filled scone off the plate, studied it for a minute, and took a bite. Kate took one as well, adding cream to hers. As she bit into hers, her eye was caught by a framed photograph on a nearby end table. She leaned over for a closer look. “Oh,” she said, “is this your family?”

Buffy, who had been lost in her own thoughts, glanced over and nodded. “Me, my mom and my sister.”

“Do they live here, too?”

Buffy shook her head. “They’re both dead.” She set her coffee down, picked up a scone and studied it as though she’d never seen one before. 

“I’m sorry,” Kate said softly.

Buffy looked up at her, eyes haunted, and gave her a slight smile. “If you apologize every time you find out about something bad that’s happened to me, you’re gonna be sorry for a really long time,” she said matter-of-factly. Then she stood. “I gotta go to the little Slayers’ room… be back in a minute.” With slight grin, she slipped out the door, shutting it behind her.

Kate found herself suddenly alone with Gibbs for the first time since the whole situation had begun. She watched him across the tray as he decimated his scones, and finally blurted out the question she’d been wanting to ask all day. “How did I die?”

He choked briefly, then swallowed down his bite of pastry with a swallow of the thick coffee. He studied her carefully for a long moment, then sighed. “Why do you want to know?”

“Don’t do that.”

He raised an eyebrow at her sharp tone. “Don’t do what?”

“For one thing, don’t play innocent with me. And don’t answer a question with a question. I have a right to know. What happened to me?”

He sighed, putting down his half-eaten scone and clutching his coffee cup. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Tony had pneumonic plague last week,” Kate answered. “He’s got another week of medical leave that he’s probably not gonna take. You and I and McGee had Ensign O’Leary and his hacking circle; we just wrapped it up yesterday.”

Gibbs placed her timeline in his memory. O’Leary’s case had been small, and they’d only taken it because they were up on rotation. O’Leary and some civilian buddies had been hacking into the systems at Bethesda Naval Hospital, basically causing minor trouble and what amounted to vandalism. They hadn’t been nearly as smart as they thought they had, and McGee and Abby had tracked them without ever having to leave HQ. The case had been closed up the day before Tony’s precipitous return from medical leave – which had also been the day they discovered the dead sailors that had led them to the terrorist cell Ari was running.

He looked down into his coffee and decided to give her the short version. “Day after that, we got a call on two dead sailors. One of them worked at Danborn Avionics, and it turned out a terrorist cell had stolen one of their old training drones and a remote-control system to run it. They were gonna bomb the pier at Norfolk when a bunch of Navy ships were coming back in. Soft target – all the families.”

Kate nodded, saying nothing but watching him closely.

“We went in,” he continued, clearing his throat slightly. “McGee tried to jam the system, but his controller got shot up. You and I and Tony made it to the roof of the building, got the guys and stopped the bomb.” He put his coffee down, stood up and walked to the window.

Kate watched him stand there silently, his fists clenched and his back tight. She felt bad for forcing him to talk about this, but she needed to know what had happened to her. She couldn’t remember, and it was driving her crazy because she couldn’t stop wondering.

Finally, Gibbs spoke again, in a voice Kate had never heard him used before. He sounded haunted and defeated. “You took a bullet for me,” he said softly. “You had a vest on, though, so you were fine. We stood you back up, and we were talking, and then…”

Gibbs paused and collected himself. This was gonna hurt like hell, and he knew it. He took a moment to simply breathe, drawing in every ounce of strength he had before turning to face her, seeing again in his mind’s eye the moment when all the air seemed to have gone out of his world. “Ari Haswari was on the roof of a building across the street. We were standing there talking, you and me and Tony, and the next thing any of us knew, we heard the shot, and then you hit the ground with the back of your head blown out. He sniped you from seven hundred feet away.”

Kate felt herself go cold all over. Her right hand went shakily to her forehead, as though to touch a wound that was not there. And then suddenly her left hand went to her stomach, to the place where the terrorist’s bullet had been caught by her flak vest. Her eyes came up to meet Gibbs’s, and her expression was pole-axed. “I… I remember,” she said softly. “I think…” She looked to her right, not seeing the sumptuous office around them but rather something else. “I’m not going to Pilates class tomorrow,” she whispered.

Gibbs swallowed hard. “That’s what Tony said to you,” he confirmed.

She looked up at him, her eyes dark and unreadable. “I really died.”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Oh.” Kate looked down at her hands as though seeing them for the first time. Gibbs was silent, simply watching her.

The moment was broken when the door opened and Buffy returned. “You guys ready to head into town?” she asked. “The kitchen’s starting to gear up, and blood pudding _stinks_ when you cook it.”

Kate looked up at Gibbs curiously. He shrugged. She turned to look at Buffy and tried to smile. “Sure.”

Buffy studied her. “You shouldn’t ask questions you’re not ready for,” she said quietly. “It doesn’t help.” 

“But I need to know!” Kate exclaimed desperately. “I don’t understand what’s going on and I need to know!”

“All you need right now is some food and a little retail therapy,” Buffy replied firmly. “Everything else can wait ‘til tomorrow. Trust me on this, okay? Voice of experience.”

 

Kate forcibly put everything out of her mind until they went to check out at their first stop, a small store where Kate discovered that she wasn’t the only person indulging in a little retail therapy. They’d been walking down a street in Bath, glancing into shopfronts for anything that caught their eye, when Buffy squealed. “ _Look_ at those boots! I _have_ to have those,” and disappeared into a shoe shop.

Kate, never one to pass on a shoegasm, followed quickly. With a shrug and a slight sigh, Gibbs trailed along behind to lurk in the doorway in a manly fashion. While Buffy tried on her boots, Kate found a pair that she wanted, high-heeled and reaching her knees.

Buffy looked over and pointed a finger at her. “With the right skirt, those boots are gonna make your legs look about three miles long. You so need those.”

“I think I need the right skirt, too,” Kate pointed out, dubiously checking her reflection over her shoulder in the mirror.

“Oh, believe me, Kate, I know where to find the right skirt.” Buffy grinned, stretching her legs out to admire the boots she was trying on. “I shall put them in a box, and they shall be my Squishy.” 

Kate giggled, and both of them pulled their new boots off, returning them to the boxes and heading for the checkout counter. It wasn’t until Kate reached for her purse that she realized something. “Oh, no! My credit cards!”

Buffy grinned. “Don’t worry about it. I’m expensing it.” She laid a small piece of black plastic down on the counter and Kate’s eyes got huge.

“Is that one of those unlimited American Express cards?”

Buffy nodded, giving her a self-satisfied little smirk. “One of the perks of being who I am.”

Once they were back out on the street, Gibbs wanted to know what she meant. “Who are you?”

Buffy chewed her lip thoughtfully. “I’m a lot of things,” she said evasively, “but in this particular situation… well, let me give you a little background.” She grabbed a table as they passed a small café and they all sat down. The waitress came to take their orders, and after she left, Buffy began to speak in a low voice. “Things weren’t always this way. It used to be that there was only one Slayer at a time, and when one died, the next was called. That’s what happened when I was fifteen. But now it’s different. There are hundreds of us now, and we all get paid and there are perks and… it’s not such a bad gig, anymore.”

She paused when the waitress brought their coffees and tea, beginning again when the waitress left. “Slayers used to be handled by a Council of Watchers. We didn’t get paid; hell, I couldn’t even get somebody to replace my leather pants when a demon ruined them. And then after my mom died…” She shook her head. “I had Dawn, and the house, and Willow and Tara mooching off me after they spent all the insurance money on God only knows what, so I was trying to make the bills at the Doublemeat Palace _and_ do the slay gig, and it was just… bad. So Giles said he was gonna make sure I never had to do that again.” 

After finishing their coffee, they trailed up the street to a small boutique that Buffy introduced as “only my favorite clothing store _ever_.” The two women ducked inside immediately. Gibbs followed, remembering why he hated shopping with women. 

They were the only customers in the shop, and the little Frenchman who ran the shop was welcoming Buffy obsequiously. Clearly, the blonde Slayer spent a lot of money here. When Buffy explained that she wanted to outfit Kate, the little man bowed and immediately went for a cloth tape measure. Gibbs settled himself on a very comfortable couch and watched as Kate was loaded down with pants in various colors and styles and sent into a changing room. Buffy, meanwhile, drifted over to a rack of skirts and began flipping through varicolored scraps of material. Kate came out in the first pair of pants, which did look good on her, and was hustled up onto a footstool in a pair of heels so that the little man could pin the hems. This process was repeated several times, and then he carried his stack of cloth into the back room.

There was a crash. The man shouted in French. A woman shouted back in Italian. Nothing sounded complimentary. Buffy snickered and sent Kate back into the dressing room with an armload of skirts. Kate came out of the dressing room a few minutes later, grabbed her new boots, and went back in. Buffy, grinning, chased her with a blouse. 

Three minutes later, Kate came out of the dressing room. Gibbs sat up straight and stared as she twisted and turned in front of the three-way mirror. The top was white, with a décolletage that showed her entire cleavage. The skirt was brown leather, almost the same color as the boots, and barely reached mid-thigh. The boots, as advertised, did indeed make Kate’s legs look like they were about three miles long. Gibbs’s mouth went dry.

Buffy looked up from a rack of blouses and stared. “Oh, my God.”

The expression on Kate’s face clearly said that she looked good, and knew it, and wanted it bad. But her innate Catholic repression wouldn’t let her have it without a fight. “I really, really shouldn’t.”

Buffy moved up behind her, tugged on the skirt’s hem gently, adjusted the blouse, and pulled Kate’s hair back in her hands. “You look like sex on legs in this outfit.”

Kate laughed, looking over at Gibbs. “What do you think?”

He swallowed hard. “You look good.”

“Good?” Buffy gaped at him. “She looks fantastic!”

Kate laughed again. “Coming from Gibbs, that’s a compliment of the highest caliber.” She looked at her reflection again and sighed slightly. It was obvious that she was weakening. “God… I need this outfit like I need a hole in the head.”

Gibbs was standing in front of her, his hands on her shoulders, before he even realized he’d moved. “Don’t ever say that again!” he snapped, shaking her slightly. “Not ever!”

Kate swallowed hard, her eyes huge and dark as she looked up at him. “I’m sorry, Gibbs,” she whispered, one hand coming up to touch his. “I’m sorry.”

He seemed to realize what he was doing then. He let go of her quickly, as though burned, then turned and left the shop.

Buffy grabbed Kate’s arm as she tried to follow him. “Let him go,” she said softly. “He’ll be fine.”

“But, I –” 

“No, Kate.” Buffy shook her arm lightly. “He’s having as much trouble dealing as you are. Maybe more. He’s like Giles; he’s got that stiff-upper-lip thing going on. This whole thing is eating him alive right now.” She pulled Kate to the couch where Gibbs had been waiting and they sat together. “Listen. Try to put yourself in his shoes. If you knew somebody that was dead, and they came back suddenly after two years, how would you feel? This is a king-size wigfest. He’s gonna need time to deal – more than the five hours or so he’s had. We’re talking long-term getting-over-it-ness. You’re gonna have to kind of, y’know, be patient.”

Kate sighed. “All right,” she said softly. “I’ll play it your way.”

Buffy nodded. “Just trust me on this. I barely know the guy, but I can tell he’s just like Giles, and we call Giles the emotional Marathon Man.”

Kate laughed softly. “That is so very appropriate for Gibbs.”

Buffy nodded. “See? Trust me. When it comes to older guys who won’t talk about their feelings? I’m practically an expert witness.” She paused. “But if you want some advice that you totally didn’t ask for? Don’t make jokes about being dead for at least the first month. They won’t go over real well.”

 

Gibbs found himself down the street in another little café, drinking coffee again and watching the doorway of the shop where he’d left Buffy and Kate. _Overreacted_ , he told himself angrily. _Definitely overreacted._ But how was he supposed to react, he wondered, when all he could see when he looked at her was the monumental way he had utterly failed to keep her alive? 

He’d thought he’d moved past this; thought he’d dealt with her death and grieved… but having her here in front of him again was the most incredibly surreal experience he could have possibly imagined. Of course, no one expects to be confronted with a dead lov – er, teammate. Especially not one that’s walking and talking and cracking jokes. 

He put his head in his hands. He wasn’t making sense even to himself. The whole situation wasn’t making sense. Gibbs wasn’t a paranormal expert; he was a cop. Cops didn’t believe in psychics and vampires and magical returns from the dead. But the evidence was there; in fact, the evidence was coming out of the shop now, laden with bags and followed by an equally-laden blonde Slayer. 

He watched Buffy look up and down the street, then point in his direction. Kate followed Buffy’s finger and waved at Gibbs, who raised one hand in return. Kate jerked her head across the street and he nodded, holding up his coffee cup to indicate that he was going to stay right where he was, thanks, until they were done. Kate nodded and stepped into the street.

Buffy’s lightning reflexes had her hand on Kate’s arm, dragging her back out of the path of an oncoming car. Gibbs was halfway out of his seat before he realized it, but he needn’t have bothered. Buffy’s sarcastic remark about Sesame Street and looking both ways before crossing could be heard for half a block or more. He sat down again, his heart pounding. If this didn’t kill him, he’d probably live forever.

 

“So, you’re totally into him.”

Kate looked up from a rack of designer jeans into Buffy’s intense green eyes. “What?”

“Gibbs. You’re totally into him.”

Kate sighed. “Not that it matters. He doesn’t think romance between agents can work. Plus there’s the added fun that we work together, and he’s got this whole rule about getting involved with co-workers.”

“You’re still totally into him.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Yes, Buffy, I’m totally into him.”

“I knew that.” Buffy pulled a denim jacket off a rack and slipped it on, checking herself out in the mirror. “So tell me about him.”

“You know that saying, still waters run deep?”

“Yeah.”

“They were talking about Gibbs when they made that one up.” Kate pulled a denim skirt off a rack and tossed it onto a nearby chair with the rest of the clothes she was getting ready to try on. “He never lets on what he’s thinking or feeling. He’s been married three times, and divorced three times, and it’s been ugly every time, or at least that’s the impression I have. One of his wives came after him with a golf club.”

Buffy giggled, slipping the jacket off and handing it to Kate. “This’ll look better on you, I think.” She watched Kate and tossed out some bait. “He’s pretty scrumptious.”

Kate blushed slightly. “I will admit to having studied the back view fairly carefully,” she finally confessed with an embarrassed smile.

“Ha!” Buffy pounced on another jacket that suited her better than the first. “Is he as solid as he looks?”

“Entirely,” Kate agreed, grinning. “I fell on him once when we were on a submarine. One hundred percent muscle.”

“So?” Buffy asked, checking herself out casually in the mirror.

“So, what?” Kate replied, curious.

“So, why haven’t you jumped him yet?”

Kate sighed. “It’s not really that simple. For one thing, he’s probably not interested in me. He likes redheads. And for another thing, there’s Rule Twelve.” Buffy raised an eyebrow and Kate clarified. “Gibbs has rules for everything. And Rule Twelve is ‘never date a co-worker.’ So…” She shrugged. “There’s not much point.”

Buffy smirked, grabbing a pair of jeans and heading for the dressing room. “Well, I hate to be the one to burst your little bubble, Kate, but… you’re not co-workers any more.”

 

Dinner at a little greasy pub was less tense; Gibbs had gotten himself calmed down and Kate was careful with her words, so Buffy was able to relax and enjoy herself a little bit. Gibbs and Kate were both good company, and she’d been lacking in good company over the last couple of years, especially since Xander had moved to Toronto and gotten married and she had completely stopped talking to Willow. Things had been better once she began talking to Giles again, but that had mostly been out of necessity; she was his second-in-command and their year-long estrangement had been taking a toll on the entire Academy. 

Never mind that Dawn’s death had been half Giles’s fault; never mind that she had been completely against the research experiment that had caused the Key to revert back from human form into its original mystical self; none of that mattered, because the Academy had to come first, and in thirteen years of being the Slayer, Buffy had finally learned one thing: the mission is what matters.

Family leaves you, friends turn on you. The mission will never let you down as long as you do your part. This is what Buffy Summers had learned from her seven-year trip through the Hellmouth and in the five years since. Family will deny you, friends will ruin you. The only person Buffy Summers could depend on was Buffy Summers. At last, Buffy finally understood Faith. Too bad it was too late.

She shook herself out of her maudlin thoughts and returned her attention to the conversation at the table: Kate declining Gibbs’s challenge to play darts. She grinned. “I’ll play,” she offered.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow. “You play darts?”

Buffy grinned slightly. “If it involves throwing pointy things, I can usually hit a target nine and three quarters times out of ten. Want to have a go?”

“You’re on.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “I’d accuse you both of being full of testosterone, but at least one of you is _supposed_ to be a girl.”

Buffy laughed. “Oh, I’m all woman, Kate, believe me.” With a suggestive wink, she slipped through the crowd up to the bar and cadged two sets of darts from the bartender.

From the table, Kate watched as Gibbs and Buffy played. Her mind was still reeling from the events of the day; it was hard to adjust to suddenly having lost years of time and finding that your entire world had changed in the space of getting into an elevator and then getting out of it again. 

If she was going to believe it, though, the evidence that would prove it to her was on Gibbs’s face. Every time he looked at her desperately, as though she might vanish in front of him, she believed it. Every time she saw the pain on his well-known face, she believed it. But what Buffy had said kept ringing in her head as well: _you’re not co-workers any more_. 

Was there a chance? Could there possibly be a chance? Kate watched Gibbs trade taunts with Buffy, and felt a lightness in her heart that hadn’t been there for a long time before. Maybe there was a chance. When he glanced her way and tossed her a casual smile, she believed it. There was a chance. And Kate Todd was going to take it.

After their first two rounds ended in a tie, Buffy and Gibbs shared a smile and returned to Kate at the table, where their food had just arrived. Kate and Gibbs had both ordered relatively safe-sounding dishes – chicken Kiev for Kate and a three-egg ham-and-cheese omelet for Gibbs – Buffy had ordered the rather adventurous-sounding toad-in-the-hole. Curious, Kate peeked when Buffy’s food arrived and was almost disappointed to find that the dish simply consisted of sausages and vegetables in a gravy-like sauce. 

Conversation over dinner was light and consisted mostly of Kate and Buffy chatting about fashion and how hard their jobs were on their wardrobe. Gibbs didn’t say much, but his eyes rarely left Kate. Buffy logged that away in the back of her mind.

They arrived back at the compound fairly late, and Buffy took Gibbs and Kate down to guest quarters. She showed them their rooms, which were next door to one another and adjoined, and then told them how to find her in the morning. Kate cocked her head. “And what exactly is planned for tomorrow?”

Buffy shrugged. “Not much, actually. Giles wants you to talk to one of our shrinks; whether you decide to or not is entirely up to you. We do need to have one of our witches check and make sure you’re not suffering any after-effects or negative whatevers from coming through the rift. That’s not up to you; there could be badness otherwise. In fact, we’ll probably do that first thing. After that… it’s really your call. You can go horseback riding, if you want, or the second-form girls have a lacrosse game in Malmesbury tomorrow afternoon if you’re into blood sports.” She yawned. “And stick a fork in me, ‘cause I’m done. See you in the morning.” With that, she turned and headed for the stairs, shifting her bags in her hands as she walked.

Gibbs got Kate’s door for her, since her hands were full as well. She entered her room and gasped as he reached over and flipped on the light for her. The room – actually a suite, as it consisted of a sitting room, a bedroom and a bathroom – was lavishly decorated, full of comfortable-looking furniture and decorated with beautiful artwork and rugs. She wandered into the bedroom, setting her bags on top of the counterpane, and looked around. “Wow.”

Gibbs was looking around in appraisal as well, his eyes up near his hairline. “Haven’t stayed anyplace this fancy in a long time.”

“Me, either,” Kate agreed, poking her head into the bathroom for a peek. “Whatever else they might do, these people sure know a lot about good living.”

The adjoining door to Gibbs’s rooms was ajar; they crossed through and looked around. His rooms were a mirror image of hers, and decorated in forest greens and deep burgundies where hers had been done in royal blues and gold. His bag was in a chair waiting for him. 

A tap on the door got both of their attention; it was a young chambermaid with a nervous smile and a tray of tea and little cakes. She set the tray on an end table and scampered. Kate poured them both a cup of tea, then sat down in one of the large, comfortable chairs and watched Gibbs pace around.

“Sit down, Gibbs,” Kate finally said in exasperation. “You’re making me nervous watching you.”

He turned and looked at her, seeming to stare right through her, and then he came and sat down in the chair across from her, his eyes never leaving her face.

She gave him a smile. “Hi.”

He blinked, and returned the smile with a twitch of his own lips. “Hi,” he repeated. Then he did something Kate never expected. He took her cup of tea away, setting it on an end table and taking her hands in his. He studied them carefully, his fingertips finding the smooth places and the calluses, learning the shape of her fingernails and even the funny place on her left hand where she’d broken her finger in high school and it hadn’t healed exactly straight. “Never thought I would ever touch you again,” he said softly, almost to himself. “Never thought I’d see you, hear your voice… and now… here you are.”

She wasn’t entirely sure what to say, so she just smiled encouragingly and squeezed his hands gently, waiting to see what he would do. He finally looked up into her eyes, and there was something in his that burned so hot she nearly flinched away from its intensity. “I have missed you, Kate,” he whispered.

 

Buffy busied herself putting her new clothing away in her closet, and was almost done when the main door to her rooms opened. She looked up and smiled at Sofia, who crept in quietly. “Hey, Sofie,” Buffy greeted. “I looked for you before we left today; where were you?”

Sofia shrugged, standing diffidently in the middle of the sitting room, looking around as though she’d never been there before… or would never be there again. Buffy set aside her new boots and went to stand in front of her. “What’s wrong?”

Sofia looked up at her. “Are you going to go away?” she asked in her soft Italian accent.

Taken aback, Buffy studied Sofia carefully. “Why would you think I was gonna go away?”

“These new people… you like them. And you don’t really like anyone here any more.” Sofia would not meet Buffy’s eyes. “And I heard Mr. Giles tell Ms. Rosenberg today that there is unusual activity beginning in Washington. He thinks there might be a Hellmouth opening up and is considering establishing a field office there.”

Buffy blinked, dropping into the nearest chair. “Really?” When Sofia nodded, Buffy continued, “And you think I might be the girl for the job?”

Sofia shrugged. “I think you’re unhappy here.”

Buffy put her elbows on her knees and studied Sofia. “Well, you’re right about that. I’m not happy here. But – and this is a big ‘but’ – if I go anywhere, you’ll go with me. You know that, right?”

Sofia, who had been studying the rug as though trying to count the nap, looked up at Buffy, hope shining in her eyes. “Really?”

“Of course,” Buffy replied, grinning. “Sofie, it’s been you and me since you were nine. Who else knows how you drop your left shoulder or what you like on your pizza?”

Sofia launched herself at Buffy, wrapping skinny arms around her mentor’s neck. “Thank you,” she whispered in Buffy’s ear.

Buffy hugged her back. “God, you’re almost as tall as I am,” she commented as Sofia reluctantly let go.

“Soon I shall be taller, and then the vampires will be more frightened of me than of you,” Sofia teased.

Buffy laughed softly, studying Sofia’s face and the relief carved there. “You’re not really happy here either, are you, Sofie?”

Sofia sighed and shook her head. “No. Not really.”

“Things not any better on the friend front?”

Sofia shrugged. “You know I do not wish to complain. My life here is… so much better than it was in Italy.”

“Yeah, but it still sucks not to have friends. It’s not your fault you’re the youngest active girl here but it still sucks for you.” Buffy’s mouth firmed up. “Tell you what… if we end up going to Washington? Which, by the way, I will be talking to Giles about tomorrow. But if we go? How would you like to go to regular school with girls your age?”

Sofia stared at Buffy. “Really?”

Buffy nodded. “Keep in mind that it comes with its own set of problems; you have to be secret-identity girl and that means keeping secrets like whoa. But if you think you want to, we can give it a try.”

The shine in Sofia’s eyes was answer enough for Buffy.

 

“So what do you think they’re doing right now?”

“It’s after midnight where they are, Tony. They’re probably asleep.”

“Good point.” Tony DiNozzo leaned back in his chair, tipping the last of his beer into his mouth. “So what do you think will happen now?”

Timothy McGee, leaning against the window and sipping at his own beer, shrugged. “I have no idea. Can Kate even come back to work? She’s technically dead.”

“That’s easily fixed,” Abby Sciuto commented from her seat in front of Tim’s computer. She waved at the huge electronic setup. “I can give her a completely new identity. She won’t even have to change her name. There are thousands of Kate Todds all over the world; she just becomes another one of those.”

“Yeah, but everyone would know who she was,” McGee pointed out.

Tony snorted. “Yeah? Let me ask you something, Probie, if you saw Pacci come in tomorrow, claiming to be a different guy with coincidentally the same name, would you think it was the real Pacci? Or would you convince yourself it was some kind of crazy coincidence?”

Abby deepened her voice into an imitation of Gibbs. “I don’t believe in coincidences.”

Tony waved his bottle. “I concede the point.”

“Besides,” McGee pointed out with the inescapable logic of the slightly drunk, “if Kate came back, what would happen to Ziva?”

 

“Gibbs, I…”

“Don’t say anything.” He squeezed her hands once, firmly, and then put them carefully in her lap, standing and walking away, picking up one of the little cakes from the tea tray and examining it carefully before taking a bite. Kate watched him, her mouth firmly closed, waiting for him to assemble his thoughts. At last he turned to face her, and though his face was a carefully blank mask, his eyes still burned. “This is a bad time,” he continued. “Possibly the worst ever. But if something happens tonight… if I wake up tomorrow and this has all just been a dream… I had to know that I told you.”

Kate stood and approached him, carefully, like someone approaching a lost and possibly feral animal. “It’s not a dream, Gibbs,” she said softly. “I promise.”

He almost reached out to her, then stopped and put his hand in his pocket. “Kate, you don’t know how badly I need that to be true.”

She smiled and contradicted him. “Yes, I do. Believe me.”

He wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her, bending his head to rest his face against her hair as he had dreamed of doing so many times before. He’d thought his chance was gone. He’d rule-twelved himself out of the best thing that could have ever happened to him, and then she’d been dead, but now… now she was here, and almost in his arms, and he’d be damned if he let her go again, not without a fight.

But it was too soon. Less than twenty-four hours had passed since both of them had gotten the shock of a lifetime, and it was too soon. He would like nothing better than to make her his, right now, but it would be a mistake. If he was going to do this, he needed to do it right.

She yawned then and he smiled. “I need some sleep,” he said quietly, “and I think you do, too.” He walked her to the adjoining door and squeezed her shoulders as he had done many times before. “Go to bed. We’ll talk more tomorrow, all right?”

She nodded, then leaned up and pressed a quick peck to his cheek. “And I promise I’ll be here.” She vanished into her room and he pushed the door closed between them, leaning back against it and feeling his muscles tremble. 

 

They stayed up late working on Sofia’s homework, and when the younger girl showed signs of falling asleep in her textbooks, Buffy picked her up and tucked her into her own bed. Tired, but not quite ready to fall asleep, Buffy wrapped herself in a quilt and curled up on her couch, thinking of Kate and Gibbs and the events of the day. 

Kate had taken her return from the dead in stride; Buffy got the impression that not much fazed the special agent who had once protected the President. Buffy was sure that a lot of it had to do with not remembering being dead; it was probably easier to accept that one had lost time than to accept that one had lost Heaven. She wondered if Kate would ever remember that time.

It might, Buffy theorized, have something to do with the way Kate had died. She’d told Buffy what Gibbs had told her, and Buffy wondered if the difference was that death had snuck up on Caitlin Todd, whereas Buffy Summers had literally leapt into its arms. She made a mental note to run that theory past Giles tomorrow… after she asked him about the possible Washington Hellmouth. 

There was a thought. A Hellmouth in Washington. Good place for one, Buffy mused sleepily. And maybe a return to the States was what Buffy needed. A new start in a place she’d never been, a place that would hold no memories for her either good or bad. A place where nobody knew Buffy Summers, and she could start over. 

Yeah, the more she thought about it, the better it sounded, Buffy decided, just before she fell asleep.

 

Abby and Tony fell asleep on McGee’s bed, drunk. McGee fell asleep on his couch.

 

Ziva sat awake that night, cleaning her guns because she couldn’t sleep. The unblinking eye of the full moon kept her company.

 

Saturday dawned clear and warm, and it was a fresh-faced Sofia Trovatelli who knocked on Gibbs’s door to bring him and Kate to the dining hall for breakfast. Kate answered the door dressed in jeans and a green top Buffy had picked out for her that she had to admit looked fabulous on her. Gibbs was pulling a blue polo on over his tee shirt when Kate pulled the door open and Sofia greeted them with a warm “Buon giorno!”

“Good morning – Sofia, right?” Kate asked.

“Yes, Miss Todd,” the youngster replied with a smile and a head bob. “Buffy says to tell you that if you want breakfast, you have to come quickly, because once the starving hordes descend, you’ll be lucky to get a burnt toast.”

With a grin, Kate looked over her shoulder at Gibbs, who was running a comb through his hair quickly. “We’re ready,” she said. 

He had been quietly astonished to find her sitting in the big wingback chair in his room when he woke; most of him had been convinced that Friday’s events had all been a dream. Discovering that it had in fact all been true had very nearly broken him, and Kate had been both shocked and deeply touched when he rolled out of bed, came to her, and pulled her into his arms, holding her as if he planned on never letting her go. He smiled softly down at her now, still the same old Gibbs but somehow more open to her now; the walls between them were firmly down and, if Kate had anything to say about it, they’d stay that way. 

Sofia led them through the maze of corridors that was the Academy’s main building, bubbling the whole time about the afternoon’s expected lacrosse match with Morridan School in Malmesbury. “We beat them last time,” she confided, “because I made the winning point.”

“Are you playing today?” Kate asked politely.

“Oh, no, Miss Todd. It wouldn’t be fair. Active Slayers only play intramural sports.”

“Why is that?” Gibbs asked curiously.

Sofia grinned. “Because once you’re active, you got the strength and speed and agility. It wouldn’t be fair to play against normal girls who haven’t got it. So we only play against each other once we go active.”

“And how does that happen?” Kate asked curiously as they rounded another corner.

Sofia’s brow furrowed. “You’d have to ask Buffy. Tell you the truth, I don’t really know.” She shrugged. “I think it just happens.” She stopped in front of a large wooden door and pulled it open, allowing the delicious smell of breakfast and the dull roar of five hundred girls’ voices to pour out of the doorway. Then she held the door for Gibbs and Kate, pointing them toward a large table near the front of the room. They recognized Buffy, Giles and Willow at the table, along with several other adults who they did not know. 

Buffy saw them enter and waved them over, pointing out two empty seats to her left. They headed across the large, noisy space to join her. Sofia went the other direction, vanishing into the crowd of girls. Five feet from the adults’ table, the noise suddenly stopped. Gibbs and Kate both started, looking around anxiously, and one of the adults at the table laughed. “We all had the same reaction the first time,” the man called out. “It’s a silencing spell, courtesy of the Magic Department.”

Gibbs pulled out Kate’s chair for her before seating himself beside her, and they both offered thanks as food dishes were passed in their direction. “Magic Department?” Gibbs asked as he dished eggs onto his plate.

The red-haired woman they recognized as Willow nodded. “We actually have two separate schools here. One is for girls who have the potential to become Slayers; the other is for girls who have the ability to be witches.”

“First vampires, now witches,” Kate commented dryly. “What’s next, secret societies intent on taking over the world?”

Buffy looked up from her plate of sausages with an expression of consternation. “Oh no, she’s figured out our plan! Curses! And we’d have done it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids and their stupid dog!”

There was laughter from around the table and Buffy gave Kate a mischievous smile. “We don’t do world takeovers, sorry… that’s someone else’s department. We deal strictly in the stoppage of apocalypses.” She passed along a bowl of mushrooms. 

During the course of the meal, Gibbs noticed one very interesting fact: while Buffy often cracked jokes, she never smiled, unless it was at himself, Kate or – only once, and fairly tightly – at Giles. She also never made eye contact with nor spoke to Willow, nor did the redhead make eye contact with or speak to Buffy. There was very little tension at the table, which told him that everyone was well accustomed to this situation. He also noticed that when Giles looked at either of the younger women, his expression became worried. Gibbs filed this information away for later examination.

After breakfast, Buffy took them upstairs to a room at the top of a tower, where they were met by a tiny, birdlike woman who looked about a hundred years old. “This is Katerina,” Buffy explained. “I’m gonna leave you with her for a little while; I need to go talk to Giles about something. I’ll either be back or I’ll send Sofia.” She vanished from the room, and Katerina gave them both a calm smile.

“Welcome,” the older woman said in a soft, Slavic accent. “So, I understand that we must examine Miss Todd for trace elements, _ja_? A trip through the realm of death, is it?”

Kate and Gibbs both nodded. Gibbs felt Kate take a deep, steadying breath.

“Come, come,” the older woman said, seating herself on a large cushion in the floor. “Sit with me, Miss Todd.” She pointed at Gibbs. “You will please remain; your energies mesh too tightly when you stand together, and I must be able to see hers alone.” She gave him a sly smile. “You may mesh all you like when I have finished, _ja_?” Laughing at her own joke, Katerina waited for Kate to sit and reached for her hands. “Now, _fraulein_ , simply close your eyes and breathe deeply. And do not worry; this will hurt not a bit.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Kate said sourly before closing her eyes as commanded.

 

“Giles?”

“Ah, Buffy, good morning again.”

“Got a second?”

“Of course.” Giles came out from behind his desk and sat down on his couch. Buffy sat down next to him, drawing up one leg beneath her as she turned to face him. “A little birdie told me you think there’s a Hellmouth opening up in D.C.”

“Well, actually, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is not.” Giles began to clean his glasses as he spoke. “I do believe that there is a small center of mystical convergence developing there, but I do not believe that it will be of nearly the magnitude or severity of a Hellmouth; certainly nothing like what we experienced in Sunnydale.”

“But there is a thing, right? And it’s gotta be watched, right?”

“Well, yes…” He paused and studied her face. “Buffy, what exactly is it that you want?” 

“Send me,” she said frankly.

He raised an eyebrow. “Are you certain? I was rather under the impression that you preferred to be on rotation here, where you – I believe your words were, ‘actually get some me-time once in awhile’?”

Her eyes went cold. “I changed my mind.”

He mentally threw up his hands. There was no arguing with Buffy in this frame of mind; lately, there was very little reasoning with her, either. Since Dawn’s reversion – he couldn’t bring himself to call it her death – Buffy had grown as cold and distant as she had been that last year in Sunnydale. And, he had to admit, not without reason. Perhaps it would do her good to get out of England for a while.

“All right, Buffy,” he said quietly. “When do you want to go?”

“When Kate and Gibbs go back, I’ll go with them. And Sofia’s coming with me. And speaking of Kate… I had an idea about her.”

 

Gibbs watched nervously as Katerina and Kate sat still and silent on their cushions for about half an hour. After Kate had closed her eyes, so had Katerina, and neither woman had so much as twitched since that moment, except for breathing. He was just about to step forward and try to wake Kate when Katerina opened her eyes and released Kate’s hands. 

Kate opened her eyes as well, staring at Katerina. “Wow.”

Katerina smiled gently. “It can be overwehleming, _ja_ , the first time.” She patted Kate’s hand. “You are perfectly healthy, _fraulein_. No ill effects. In fact, I believe you may find yourself in the best fitness of your life. The rest has done you good.”

Kate grinned wryly. “Even if I don’t remember it?”

“You will,” Katerina said softly. “You must give yourself time to heal. Your mind has been under a great shock, _ja_ , and it requires time to resettle. Now, I believe there is someone at the door for you, and perhaps your young man would like some time in the sun, _ja_?”

Smirking slightly at the idea of being called anyone’s young man, Gibbs helped Kate up and they started out the door, only to be met in the corridor by Sofia. “Good morning again!” the youngster greeted. “I’m told to bring you to Mr. Giles’s office, please.”

 

Giles was in a large leather wingback chair and Buffy was sitting on top of his desk when Sofia ushered them into the spacious office. With eyes that always saw everything around them, Kate and Gibbs both took in the book-lined walls, the plush Oriental rugs, the sumptuous furniture, and exchanged glances. There was more money in this office alone than in the entire West Wing of the White House. Kate swallowed slightly. She and Gibbs moved together as a unit to take seats on the comfortable leather sofa when Giles stood and invited them. 

“We have a proposition we’d like to make to you, Miss Todd,” Giles began in that soft voice. “It’s exceedingly unusual, but then, your case is exceedingly unusual.”

“We’re looking to open a field office in D.C.,” Buffy explained, “and we’re gonna need experienced staff. We don’t have a lot of that to go around.”

“You must understand,” Giles continued gently, “that it would be impossible for you to return to your previous position with the government. Too many people there know who you are and know that you are supposed to be dead. The list of unanswerable questions that you would be asked is extraordinarily long.”

“So we kinda thought maybe we could talk you into coming to work for us,” Buffy finished.

Kate’s eyes flicked back and forth from Buffy to Giles and back again. “Doing what?” she asked finally. “I’m no vampire hunter.”

“Not yet,” Giles corrected with a slight smile. He stood, walking over to his desk and picking up a manila file folder. “However, I took the liberty of accessing your records with NCIS. You are, according to your last performance evaluation, a top-notch investigator with excellent instincts and good research skills.” He flipped a page over and continued to read. “You are also trained as a profiler and you were hand-chosen to protect the President of the United States when you were working for the Secret Service. Furthermore,” and here he paused, looking up at Kate with those intense green eyes, “at the recommendation of your team leader, you were posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”

“Only the highest award ever given to a civilian in America,” Buffy added softly. She leaned over and read off the folder Giles was holding. “For especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States and world peace.”

Kate slowly turned to face Gibbs. “You did that? For me?”

He swallowed, then nodded slightly. “Yeah.”

Kate ducked her head, staring down at her hands. There did not seem to be words for the enormity of what he had done for her. She finally looked up at him again, hoping that everything she was feeling showed in her eyes. When his own crinkled up at the corners in a slight smile, she knew that she had gotten her message across.

Giles and Buffy exchanged a glance, and Giles cleared his throat. “So you see,” he continued quietly, “while you may not have the necessary specific training, you are more than qualified for the job.”

Kate cleared her own throat, which was suspiciously thick. “What exactly would the job be?”

“Basically, you’d be playing backup for me and Sofie. Slayers do the heavy lifting, but a Watcher does the research, helps us train, helps us find the demons, tells us how to kill the demons. In a lot of ways, Watchers are even more important than Slayers. Not everything can be killed by staking or beheading. Some things need to be killed with silver; some things have to have a spell done. It gets complicated, and Slayers are very simple. You point us at what needs killing, and we kill it.”

“I don’t know if this will help you make your decision,” Giles added delicately, “but there is also the question of compensation.”

Kate raised an eyebrow, looking around. “I assume the pay’s pretty good.”

Buffy made a small scoffing noise in her throat when she glanced into the file again. “You could say that.”

“And your people would train me in the…” Kate waved a hand. “Paranormal stuff?”

Giles nodded. “Buffy herself can bring you up to speed on almost everything except the magic; for that, we’ll send someone with you who will mentor you until you are ready to handle things on your own. And backup is always a phone call away; we have four witches on staff who can teleport at will, so if anything comes up that can’t be handled over the telephone, a full team could be at your side within forty-five minutes.”

Kate glanced over at Gibbs. “What do you think?” she asked him softly.

He shrugged. “Sounds exciting,” he allowed. “And they’re right about you coming back to work… I’ve been racking my brain all day and I can’t think of a way to get it done.”

Kate nodded once. “Neither can I.” She turned and looked at Buffy and Giles, who were watching her with identical inscrutable expressions. “All right,” she said firmly. “I’m in.”

“Sweet!” Buffy exclaimed. “And tomorrow we go apartment hunting!”


	3. Chaos Theory III: Strange Attractors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something is snacking on Navy personnel. Kate and Buffy must work with NCIS and try not to blow Kate’s cover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My descriptions of Quantico are entirely fictitious.

“It’s like working with Gibbs, only shorter and with better hair.”

Abby snorted into her Caf-POW! and grinned at her friend. “It can’t be that bad.”

“It’s not bad,” Kate clarified. “She’s just… intense.”

Abby nodded sagely. “I can see that. She doesn’t suit her name, does she? I always think of someone named Buffy as the bubble-headed cheerleader type… but she scares me even more than Ziva scares McGee.”

“She’s definitely not the bubble-headed cheerleader type.” Kate rested her chin on her fist. “But I think she could have been.” Off Abby’s questioning expression, Kate clarified. “She’s been through some really rough patches. She came back from the dead, too – only she remembered where she was. She still remembers… she thinks she was in Heaven, and she still remembers what it was like there. And when they brought her back, she had to dig herself out of her grave. She still has nightmares.”

Abby looked horrified. “Oh, my God,” she murmured. “I would, too.”

Kate nodded. “Sometimes I can see where she might have once been sort of bubbly. She has moments where she’s funny and easygoing. But they’re few and far between. She’s very bitter about a lot of things that have happened. I don’t know all the details, but I do know that she and Willow used to be as tight as you and I are, but they haven’t spoken more than two words to each other in over two years.”

Abby blinked. “Wow. Any idea what happened?”

“She told Tony that Willow killed her sister. Apparently it was some kind of an accident, and it had to do with magic, but still…” Kate shrugged. “I haven’t asked. But just between you and me, the girl’s hurting bad. If there was ever anybody that needed therapy, Buffy Summers would be that person. You know?”

“And the last person to ever go and get it.” Abby nodded. “You’re right – I bet it is just like working with Gibbs.”

Kate laughed. “So there’s that. Which is a big thing. And there’s also this huge learning curve that I feel like I’m always behind.”

“Well, it’s only been, what, three weeks? You can’t expect to be up to speed yet. That guy Giles you talk about, you said he’s been doing this since he was a kid.”

Kate nodded, leaning back in her chair and enjoying the late-fall sunlight. “He started when he was ten. I got the whole long saga while we were still in England. Apparently, back in the day, this thing used to be kept in families and stuff. Back when there was only one Slayer at a time.”

“And now they’re recruiting anybody they can find?” Abby inquired.

“Pretty much. And don’t get any ideas. Gibbs would _kill_ me if he thought I was trying to recruit you away from NCIS.”

Abby laughed. “Don’t worry; if the Beluga caviar at the Ritz Carlton isn’t enough to lure me away from NCIS, the threat of having to move into the Slayer Sorority House would definitely keep me there.”

Kate glanced at her watch. “Speaking of being there, we’d better get a move on.”

They stood, and Abby dropped a few bills on the table for the tip. They were just climbing into Kate’s new car when Abby’s cell phone rang. “It’s Gibbs.” She flipped it open. “Hey, boss-man. I’m on my way back right now.”

 _“Good,”_ Gibbs replied curtly. _“Bring Kate back with you. I think our new case is going to fall in her jurisdiction.”_

Abby’s eyes grew wide. “Is that a good idea?” she asked, flicking a glance at her friend.

_“Probably not, but it’s the only thing I can think of to do.”_

“We’ll be there in ten minutes,” Abby replied, and closed her phone as Gibbs hung up. “He wants you to come in with me. Says there’s a new case in your jurisdiction.”

Kate raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound good.”

Abby chewed her lip and did not reply.

 

The victim on the autopsy table was covered in some kind of slime that dripped off the table and onto the floor with steady plopping noises. The smell that filled the room was eye-wateringly sulfuric and Kate gagged when they first walked in. “My God,” she said through the mask Ducky thoughtfully provided for her. “What could do this?”

“We were rather hoping you could tell us,” Ducky replied.

Kate walked around the table, examining the body and the thick yellowish slime that covered it. “That’s… really disgusting.”

“What did this, Kate?” Gibbs asked, leaning over her shoulder.

“I have no idea,” she replied frankly. “I haven’t seen anything like this in the books yet.” She pulled out her cell phone and snapped several pictures of the body. “I’ll show it to Buffy; if she doesn’t know, I’ll call Giles. Can I have a sample of the…” her hand fluttered expressively. “Slime?”

Ducky got an evidence jar and filled it with the sticky substance, closing it tightly and sealing it in a bag before handing it to Kate, who slipped it into her purse. “I’ve sent a sample up to Abby as well.”

“Thanks. If she finds anything, have her call me. Who was this guy?”

“Lance Corporal Jack MacDougal, age twenty,” Tony announced, entering the room with a file in his hand. “Stationed at Quantico. Works in the motor pool. He’s a mechanic.”

“Family?” Gibbs asked.

“None. Not married, no kids, no siblings, parents died when he was a kid. Raised in foster care, enlisted straight out of high school. Lived in the barracks.”

“You and Ziva head to Quantico. Start interviewing his friends, his co-workers, anybody you can find that might have seen or heard something. Find out if he’s involved in anything weird.”

“On it.” Tony left again as quickly as he’d arrived.

Kate flipped her phone open and called Buffy. “Hey,” she greeted, pressing the speaker phone button. “I’ve got a dead guy covered in slime.”

 _“Sounds yummy. Where is he?”_ Buffy asked.

“The autopsy room at NCIS,” Kate replied.

_“Oh, crap. Are you there now?”_

“Yeah. It really stinks in here.”

_“I’ll start hitting the books. Any details?”_

“Not so far.” Kate circled the body again. “The slime is sort of yellow-brown in color and smells like sulfur.”

_“Hmm. Could be a chaos demon, I know they’re pretty slimy. When you say covered in slime, how covered are we talking? Thin layers or…?”_

“I’m talking it looks like something with a nasty, sticky cold used this guy for a handkerchief,” Kate replied, stepping carefully around a pile of ick on the floor. Gibbs fought the urge to gag slightly at her description.

 _“Oh, gross.”_ Buffy laughed.

“After that thing in Anacostia Park last week, this is nothing,” Kate replied with a grin.

 _“You screamed like a girl at that thing in Anacostia Park,”_ Buffy teased.

“It was on my head!” Kate defended herself, laughing. Gibbs glared. She grinned at him. “So, chaos demon?”

 _“Or it could be a Fyarl,”_ Buffy said thoughtfully. _“They sneeze slime all over their victims. Does he have any wounds?”_

Kate studied the body. “I can’t tell through the slime. Ducky?”

“Neither can I, Caitlin,” he replied, smiling slightly. “Once I get it all off him, I can send you a copy of the autopsy report.”

 _“That would be great, Ducky,”_ Buffy said as Kate nodded. _“He may have been chewed on, or he may have just suffocated from the slime. If you can tell us, that’ll help us figure out what did this.”_

“Of course, Buffy,” Ducky agreed. “Er, do you think that this substance is dangerous?”

 _“I wouldn’t touch it with my bare hands,”_ Buffy replied. _“You never know. Even if it doesn’t eat the skin away like acid, it still might be poisonous.” She paused, then added thoughtfully, “Or alive.”_

All three of them jumped away from the table when she said that. “Alive?” Gibbs barked.

 _“Well, if it hasn’t acted like it’s alive yet, it probably isn’t,”_ Buffy mused. _“But you never know.”_

“How do we tell?” Kate asked, staring distrustfully at the ooze on the floor.

 _“If it starts chasing you and trying to eat your face, it’s alive,”_ Buffy replied pragmatically.

Gibbs rolled his eyes.

 

“I have no idea what’s in this,” Abby announced when Gibbs and Kate walked into the lab. “I know it’s organic, and it contains protein and carbon and all the little things that organic stuff is supposed to contain, but outside of that, I got nothing.”

Gibbs sighed. “It was worth a shot.”

“Hey, Kate, any chance we could get hooked into whatever database of demons the Coalition has?”

Kate blinked. “I don’t even know if they have one,” she said slowly, “but it’s a good idea. I’ll ask Giles.”

“That would be _so cool_.”

Gibbs rolled his eyes again. “I cannot even believe I am entertaining this line of discussion.”

Kate grinned. “Oh, come on, Gibbs. It could be worse. At least nobody’s asking you to talk about your feelings.”

His eyes narrowed at her. “I do still carry a gun, you know.”

“So do I,” Kate retorted, her grin getting wider. “Only now it’s a Glock.”

Abby fluttered her eyelashes. “You guys are so cute when you flirt.”

 

Kate stopped off to pick Sofie up from school on her way back to what Tony had dubbed the Slayer Sorority House. Sofie was full of good cheer and reports of her first boyfriend. Kate listened with interest and no little amusement as Sofie explained how the American boys thought her accent was exotic and sexy, and how she mocked them in Italian because they didn’t know what she was saying and just thought it sounded cool.

“Got any homework?” Kate finally asked when Sofie took a break.

Sofie made a face. “Maths,” she admitted. “And definitions for science.”

“Well, when you get done with all that, we’ve got even more fun for you. There’s at least one demon on the loose.”

“Awesome!” The young girl’s eyes sparkled. “What sort?”

“We don’t know yet,” Kate admitted as she pulled into the driveway. Sofie hit the button for the garage door opener and Kate pulled in beside Buffy’s new Honda motorcycle. “I’ve got a sample of slime and a chemical analysis, and Buffy’s digging out the books.”

“Hunting tonight?” Sofie asked as they climbed the stairs into the kitchen.

“Not yet,” Buffy said from the stove where she was presiding over something that, judging by texture alone, looked like it might eventually become spaghetti sauce. “Not until we know what this thing is. If it’s something that needs something specific to kill it, we don’t want to go out unprepared.”

Kate kicked her shoes off by the door and padded over to peer into the saucepan. “Looks remarkably unlike spaghetti sauce,” she commented.

“Everybody’s a critic,” Buffy replied mildly. “You brought the slime sample?”

Kate pulled it out of her bag. “One evidence jar of slime, as requested. Abby gave me a printout of the chemical analysis from the mass spec, but all she could really tell me was that it was organic.”

“Not very helpful,” Buffy pointed out mildly, taking the evidence jar and handing the wooden spoon to Kate. “Stir.”

Kate obediently took over stirring, then paused and stuck her face into the steam. “Why does the spaghetti sauce smell like chili powder?” Pulling the spoon out, she ran her finger up the side of the utensil and tasted. “For that matter, why does the spaghetti sauce taste like chili powder?”

Buffy waved a negligent hand at the spice rack. “I thought it might be good with more basil in it.”

“Buffy, basil and chili powder are not the same thing!”

“I know,” Buffy replied, unscrewing the top of the jar and taking a tentative sniff, then gagging and quickly capping the jar again. “Oh, god, that’s gross. No, I accidentally knocked the chili powder in while I was reaching for the thyme. Or something.”

“We can not eat spaghetti sauce that has chili powder in it.” Kate took the saucepan to the sink and unceremoniously dumped the mess into the garbage disposal. “Sofie, call out for something.”

“Anything?”

“Whatever you feel like. It’s your turn to pick.” She ran water into the pan, turned off the stove, and turned to Buffy. “If you wanted to order takeout, why didn’t you just say so?”

“Because you bitched the last two times?” Buffy explained innocently, grinning, and tossed the evidence jar at her. “Got pictures?”

“On my phone.”

Buffy took the phone and flipped it open, studying the pictures carefully. “I’m not a hundred percent, but I’m thinking Fyarl,” she said. “They shoot paralyzing slime out of their noses at their victims.”

“Oh, that’s disgusting.”

“I’ll check with Giles to be sure; he’d know.”

“He’s had encounters with Fyarl demons before?”

Buffy laughed. “He was one for about a day.”

Kate’s eyes sparkled. “I think I need to hear this story. It could be a very important part of my Watcher training.”

“You could be very right,” Buffy replied, grinning. “Sofie! Homework before demons!”

“Do I have to?”

 

“But I want to go!” Sofie stood in the doorway of Buffy’s bedroom, pleading her case before an implacable judge. “I won’t be in the way, I promise!”

Buffy, who was busy secreting weapons on her body, shook her head again. “No, Sofie. You know the rules. You don’t get field time until you’re sixteen. It has nothing to do with you being in the way; it isn’t safe and you’re too young.”

Not for the first time, Buffy was grateful that was the first rule young Potentials learned upon induction into the Academy: no field time until age sixteen. She hated the idea of sending little girls out, even if they were full Slayers, and had been adamant with Giles about setting that rule. He had agreed.

Most of the girls did not. Trained from induction to accept their calling, many of them were enthusiastic about becoming active, and looked forward to the day when they could be included in training missions. Girls who were activated younger, such as Sofie, often chafed at the restrictions; the Calling was strong in every girl and even Buffy felt the desperate _need_ to be out and Slaying. But she stood firm.

Tucking a final stake into her waistband, she crossed the room and put her hands on Sofie’s shoulders. “Look, I understand. Okay? I understand you wanting to be out there – needing to be out there. Of all people, I do. But you’re twelve. That’s still too young for field work. Just… I want you to be a kid for awhile longer, okay? Trust me on this one.”

Sofie’s glare softened, and finally she sighed. “Okay. I guess I’ll go watch _Survivor_.”

“That’s the ticket. Mindless enter- don’t you have a history test tomorrow?”

Sofie made a face, which was all the answer Buffy needed. “Study,” she said, pointing a finger at Sofie. “You can watch _Survivor_ , but I want you studying otherwise. And bed by nine-thirty if Kate and I aren’t already home.”

Sofie sighed again and slumped her shoulders, dragging herself toward her own room with an overly-dramatic air of dejection. Kate poked her head out into the hallway and watched Sofie go, then turned to Buffy. “Somebody’s puppy get kicked?”

“No slaying, lots of studying.” Buffy grinned. “My mother promised me someday I’d turn into her. I never believed her until the day I walked into a dorm room to investigate a suspicious smell and caught myself saying ‘would you just _look_ at this pigsty!’ At that point I gave myself up for lost.”

Kate laughed, shutting the door to her bedroom as she came out into the hallway. She and Buffy were both dressed similarly in basic black and comfortable boots, but whereas Buffy carried her standard weaponry of stakes and crossbows, Kate felt more comfortable with cold Austrian steel on her hip and around her calf. She folded her wallet around so that her Council I.D. and concealed-carry permit were on the outside, then slipped it into her pocket. “Ready?”

“Did the silver come?”

Kate nodded. “Dropped onto the kitchen floor about two hours ago.” She drew her weapon and released the clip, showing Buffy the shine of the silver bullets inside. “Willow’s better than FedEx.”

“Good.” Buffy headed for the stairs, Kate following quickly. “It’d be hard to sneak a big sword onto a naval base, and I don’t want to have to risk getting close enough to a Fyarl to stab it with a knife.”

Kate grabbed her keys off the hook by the door as they walked out into the garage, and Buffy made a face. “Could we please take the bike?”

“Not a chance,” Kate replied flatly. “I’ve seen the way you ride that thing.” She climbed into the driver’s seat of her car and Buffy climbed in on the other side, griping. Kate turned the radio on as they pulled out of the driveway and ignored her.

 

Things went bad almost from the beginning. They were able to make it onto Quantico’s base with no trouble, thanks to a stealth charm provided by an Academy witch, but it made them neither invisible nor inaudible, simply unremarkable unless they should happen to be seen doing something remarkable. Such as, for example, rounding a corner behind the mess hall and coming face-to-face with a Fyarl demon in the process of gnawing on a new victim.

The victim wasn’t even dead yet; he was still choking in the slime that the demon had sprayed on him, and trying to scream around the pain of having his leg chewed, when his would-be rescuers stumbled onto him and the creature which was making him supper. “Kate!” Buffy exclaimed. “Shoot it!”

Kate did, right between the eyes, and the silver bullet did its job: the Fyarl demon fell over dead. Buffy dropped to her knees to scrape at the slime covering the victim’s face while Kate pulled off her overshirt to try and stop the bleeding in the leg. That was how the MPs responding to the gunshots found them seconds later.

Across the slimy body of the man they were trying to save, Buffy sighed at Kate. “This is what I’m talking about when I say it never freaking fails.”

Kate, looking up into the muzzle of an M16, could only nod in agreement. “I see what you mean.”

Half an hour later, with the young recruit gone to Bethesda for treatment, Kate and Buffy were escorted none-too-gently into a holding cell in the Quantico brig. Kate repeated her request to be allowed to make a phone call, and was told again by the arresting MPs that she’d get her phone call when they decided to give it to her and not before. The two women sat back on one of the bunks in the holding cell and studied one another. “Well,” Kate said slowly, “I guess it could always be worse.”

Buffy winced. “And I can just about guarantee that now? It will be.”

 

When his phone rang, Tony DiNozzo was sound asleep. He jerked up out of bed on auto-pilot and answered, and was halfway through a conversation with dispatch before he woke up and realized he was on the telephone. He managed to get enough information out of the second half of the conversation that he didn’t need a repeat: there were two suspects in an attack under guard at Quantico and someone was needed to go and interview them. He wondered why Gibbs hadn’t been called first, but shrugged it off. Maybe the boss had smashed his cell again.

He rolled out of bed, dressed quickly in jeans and a button-up shirt, checked his hair, and was out the door in fifteen minutes. The drive to Quantico was shorter than usual, given the late hour and lack of traffic, and he was pulling up in front of the security building within forty-five minutes of leaving his house. He strolled in, flashed his badge and ID, and was directed by an armed Marine back down a hallway to the holding cells.

Coming down the hallway, he paused before he could be seen by the occupants of the cell he was heading toward. He knew that voice.

“Lean back farther,” the voice – a woman’s – was saying. “You want to really feel the stretch in your legs and back.”

“If I lean back any farther,” another woman replied, “I’ll be leaning through the floor.”

“Arch your back,” Kate suggested.

“Ow,” Buffy complained.

“You need to work on your flexibility,” Kate said firmly.

His lips twitching in a fight not to smile, Tony walked forward five more steps and leaned against the bars of the cell. Buffy lay on the floor, twisted into the contortions of an advanced yoga position. Kate was sitting on one of the thinly-mattressed bunks, leaning against the wall and watching Buffy with a critical eye. “Have I come at a bad time?” Tony offered.

Kate looked up; Buffy fell over. They both scrambled to their feet and came up to the bars. “Tony. Thank God. You have to get us out of here.” Kate’s voice was full of relief.

“Well, I suppose I could be convinced to do that,” Tony said, grinning. “But you’re gonna have to tell me why you’re here in the first place.”

“The thing that killed your Lance Corporal was a Fyarl demon,” Buffy reported. “We found it snacking on a guy behind the mess hall and Kate shot it, but somebody heard the shots and the MPs came.”

“Snacking?” Tony repeated, disbelief coloring his voice. “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack,” Kate confirmed. “The new victim didn’t die – at least, I don’t think he did. They sent him to Bethesda.”

Tony shook his head. “Let me go get you two released into my custody.”

Twenty minutes later, the three of them were in Tony’s car, heading off base to where they had left Kate’s car. “You’ll have to come in tomorrow,” Tony told them. “We still have to do all the paperwork, but we’ll juggle it somehow.” He sighed. “Gibbs is not gonna like this.”

“Kate can handle him,” Buffy replied breezily, climbing out of the back seat.

Tony waggled his eyebrows. “I have no doubt.”

Kate rolled down her window and tossed Buffy her keys. “Don’t wreck it on the way home, okay?”

Buffy raised an eyebrow as she caught the keys. “Where are you going?”

“To see Gibbs,” Kate explained. “It’ll be worse if he has to get blindsided with this at eight in the morning.”

“Good point,” Tony murmured. He raised a hand in farewell to Buffy. “See you in the morning.”

“You bet,” Buffy replied, grinning as she hopped into Kate’s car.

Tony put his new Mustang into gear and pulled away from the curb. Now alone with Kate for the first time since her sudden resurrection a few weeks ago, he found himself with a dry mouth and no words. They drove for a few miles before Kate finally broke the silence. “You’re awfully quiet,” she commented.

He shrugged. “I keep racking my brain trying to think of a movie that fits this and I just don’t have one.”

Kate laughed. “Never thought I’d see the day when Tony DiNozzo couldn’t think of a movie to match a situation.”

Tony grinned, but it was tight and painful. “They don’t make a lot of movies about having your friend come back from the dead after two years.”

“No,” Kate said softly, her smile fading. “I guess they don’t.”

The silence in the car grew uncomfortable after that, and Tony cast around for a neutral topic, finally settling on Kate’s new roommates. “So… what’s Buffy like?”

“She’s… a lot like Gibbs, actually,” Kate mused. “When it comes to the job, she doesn’t just do the job, she _is_ the job. And she’s hurting. She’s been through a lot and her friends haven’t really been there for her the way she needed them to. I don’t think it was out of malice… after spending some time with Giles and talking a lot to Willow, I think it was mostly out of just not knowing what to say or do.” Kate shrugged. “Outside of the job, she’s great. She treats Sofie like a younger sister, and Sofie absolutely adores her. She’s fun. Very smart, though I’m not sure she really realizes it. She’d have made a good agent if she hadn’t been a Slayer.”

“She seems pretty cool,” Tony said idly. “Not that I’ve spent much time around her or anything.”

Kate’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t even think about it, DiNozzo.”

He blinked. “Think about what?”

“Whatever it is you’re thinking about Buffy. Don’t. She won’t ever be one of your weekend conquests. If you so much as try, I’ll take you apart at the seams.”

Tony was silent for a long moment, his jaw clenching. As he turned onto Gibbs’s street and pulled into the driveway, he turned to face his passenger. “You’ve been gone for over two years, Kate, and that's not your fault, but you’ve missed a lot. I’m not the same person you knew then. You haven’t changed a bit, but I have, and you need to get to know who I am now before you start making assumptions.” He switched the car off and got out, heading for the front door.

Kate sat still for a moment in shock before sliding out of the car to follow him, her expression thoughtful.

 

The sound of Tony shouting his name from upstairs was unexpected but not unprecedented, and Gibbs tossed his sandpaper onto the workbench before replying. “Coming up.” By the time he made it to the top of the basement stairs, Tony was already in the kitchen, followed by Kate.

This was fairly unprecedented, and Gibbs paused, worried. “What’s wrong?”

“Kate got arrested at Quantico tonight.”

Gibbs’s eyebrow went up and he turned to Kate, who was leaning against the doorjamb, for confirmation. She nodded, her lips twisted slightly. “I got the thing, though,” she added. “Turns out it was a Fyarl after all. Buffy and I found it taking a bite out of an enlisted man behind the mess hall. They took him to Bethesda; he should be okay.”

Gibbs ran a hand though his hair. “Well, at least we don’t have a second body on our hands.” He sighed, dropping into one of the chairs at his kitchen table. “Suppose there’s no getting out of the paperwork, though.”

“Nope,” Tony replied, leaning against the counter. “Those Marines were not happy campers.”

“All right. I’ll…” Gibbs paused, then sighed again. “Hell. I have no idea what I’ll do. We’ll work something out.”

“It’s not necessary,” Kate said softly.

Gibbs and Tony both blinked. “You said what?” Tony asked.

“I said it isn’t necessary,” Kate repeated. “The Coalition has clearance to operate covertly in the U.S.”

“Since when?” Gibbs exclaimed.

Kate smiled slightly. “Since at least 1372, which is the first time in recorded history a Slayer was born in North America.” Kate waggled her PDA at them both. “I have numbers of people to get out of bed and come bail me and my Slayer out of jail from the SECNAV all the way up to Condoleeza Rice. And believe me, if I called her, she’d come.”

Tony stared at her. “Then what the hell did they call _me_ for?”

“They called NCIS because they were doing their jobs. If anybody besides one of us had come to get me, I’d have had to make that phone call. Since it was you, Tony, I didn’t.” She shrugged. “By the time Buffy and I show up to answer questions tomorrow – which we’d better make around ten – this will all be handled. Everything else will be for show. We’ll turn up, you’ll drag us into an interrogation room and make it look good. About halfway through, we’ll be interrupted and you’ll be told to let us go on our way with NCIS’s apologies. You’ll snarl, Buffy and I will smile pretty, and it’ll all be over.”

“Just like that?” Gibbs demanded.

Kate nodded. “Just like that.”

Tony yawned. “Works for me. In the morning though. I was sound asleep when they called from Quantico. Your phone dead again, Boss?”

“Forgot it at the office.”

Tony pushed off from the counter. “Come on, Kate. I’ll take you home.”

“I’ll take her home, DiNozzo. Go. Get some sleep. I need you firing on all cylinders in the morning.”

Tony paused, his eyes moving from Gibbs to Kate and back again. Wisely saying nothing, he shrugged. “Suit yourself. Night, Boss.” He turned and made his way out the door. A moment or two later, they heard the engine of his Mustang fire up and then pull out of the driveway and head down the road.

When things were silent again, Kate folded her arms. “What?”

“This bothers me.” Gibbs stood and went to the refrigerator, holding up a beer bottle with a question on his face. Kate nodded, coming and taking the frosty beverage from him, and he got another one for himself, twisting the cap off and tossing it into the trash can before turning to face her again.

“What bothers you?” she asked, echoing his movements and taking a drink.

“This whole thing. Monsters, vampires, whatever. It bothers me. I don’t like it. I don’t know how the hell we’re supposed to cover this up, and I don’t like cover-ups anyway.” He took a long swig of his beer. “I don’t like you being mixed up in all this.”

She hoisted herself up onto the kitchen counter and sat there, studying him, trying to read between his lines and failing as miserably as she always had. _What aren’t you telling me, Gibbs?_ she wondered. He looked angry, but not at her. She wondered, not for the first time, what was going through his mind. Suddenly sick of wondering, she tossed out a gauntlet. “Why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you for once?”

He turned and stared at her, beer bottle dangling precariously from suddenly nerveless fingers. “Bothering me? What’s _bothering_ me? What’s bothering me, Kate, is knowing that you’re out there all the time, with these… monsters that aren’t even supposed to exist, and there’s nothing… I can’t…” He trailed off, shaking his head. _I couldn’t protect you from Ari. Now I can’t protect you from this. You’re going to wind up dead again, playing with fire, and I’m just as powerless to stop it now as I was before._

“You can’t what?” she asked softly. “Stop me? Protect me? I don’t want to be stopped, Gibbs. You couldn’t stop me if you tried. My whole life has always been about helping other people, protecting other people. I can’t do that with NCIS any more; I _can_ do it for the Coalition. And I don’t need to be protected.”

“The hell you don’t!” he burst out. “If you didn’t need protecting, you wouldn’t have ended up in the brig at Quantico tonight! Where the hell was Buffy during all this? I thought Slayers were supposed to protect their backup!”

Kate’s lips quirked up in an almost-smile. “She was right there with me,” she explained in a soft voice. “We both got arrested together. And we never would have gotten arrested in the first place, but we had to stop and patch up that enlisted kid. He was bleeding pretty badly.”

“I don’t like it,” Gibbs repeated again, stubborn and angry. “It’s not safe.”

Kate laughed. “And working for NCIS was?”

He closed his eyes, seeing again her laughing eyes on that rooftop just before Ari Haswari closed them forever. “No,” he said softly, and his voice was thick when he said it.

Kate bit her lip, wishing she could take back those last five words. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“Don’t apologize,” he responded automatically.

“Bullshit,” she snapped, and almost smiled at the speed with which his head whipped up to stare at her and the unaccustomed profanity. “I shouldn’t have said that. I just… I forget, Gibbs. Hell, I put my foot in it with Tony on the way here. I never would have dreamed that was possible before, but as he reminded me, I’ve been gone for two years, even though it doesn’t seem like it, and everything’s changed. McGee’s grown a spine, Tony apparently learned how to respect women, and you…”

He watched her, his eyes sharp, as her voice trailed off. “I what, Kate?”

She shook her head, swallowing hard. “You forgot how to smile,” she said softly. “Three weeks, and I haven’t seen you smile yet. I mean, you were never a bucket of laughs or a walking comedy night, but you used to smile at me sometimes. When did you forget how to smile, Gibbs?”

He moved toward her, setting his beer down on the counter, and standing close enough that their body heat mingled in the air between them. He looked down into her eyes, feeling the words boiling up behind his lips, and wondered for a moment if what he was doing was the smartest or the dumbest thing he’d ever done in his life. His logical mind screamed at him to back away from her, not to open that door, that this was the last thing either of them needed. His bruised heart told his logical mind to go fly a kite. “When you died,” he whispered.

Her right hand found its way up to the side of his face, her thumb smoothing the lines around his eye. “I’m not dead any more,” she whispered back.

His own right hand somehow found its way to her knee, resting there on the durable fabric of her black jeans, his fingers kneading almost absently at the side of her leg. “No,” he agreed, “you’re not.”

She swallowed again, said a brief prayer to God or Jesus or any saints that might be having a slow moment and spoke again. “And we’re not co-workers any more.”

He felt his heart clench. “No,” he agreed again. “We’re not.”

She felt her lips twitch upward again. “So… you know… Rule Twelve doesn’t apply any more. Not to… not to us.” She bit her lip again, her heart in her throat. Us. Would he allow there to be an ‘us’? Or would he back up now that she’d taken that leap, tell her that his concern was just what any boss would have for his teammate, or former teammate as the case would be, and she’d really read too much into his reactions and he was sure sorry, Kate, but he just didn’t really feel that way about her and he’d better take her home now?

He swallowed hard. The red alert sirens were blaring loudly from his logical mind. _This is a mistake!_ it was screaming. _Don’t do this! This is a Very Bad Idea!_

His left hand came up, around the outside of her arm, and rested along her jawline. “No,” he agreed for a third time, telling his logical mind very firmly to get stuffed. “It doesn’t.” And he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers.

Her hand slid from the side of his face back into his hair and her mouth opened beneath his in blatant invitation, a soft sound escaping her throat when he took it, his tongue meeting hers in gentle exploration. He tasted like coffee and beer and something deeply, indefinably male, and she wanted nothing more in life than to taste him over and over again. Her other hand made its way slowly up to wrap around his shoulders as his slid under the hem of her shirt, his fingers splaying across the soft, warm flesh of her back.

When he finally drew back from her, they were both breathing hard. He rested his forehead against hers, his eyes still closed, and his breath washed warm across her face. Her fingers were still threaded in his hair, his left hand was still on her back. He swallowed hard, cleared his throat, and gripped her thigh tighter with his right hand. “I have dreamed of doing that for two years,” he whispered. “I couldn’t… it wouldn’t have been right… it wouldn’t have been fair to you or the team… and then you were dead, and I thought I never would. Thought I’d lost my chance.”

He pulled back, opened his eyes, and looked down into hers. “I have missed you, Kate,” he said, and his voice was husky and rough now, as it had been in that room in England a few weeks ago. “I have missed you like a man in the desert misses water.”

 

Kate was awakened at seven-thirty the next morning by the ringing of her cell phone. She fumbled for her night table, but it wasn’t where it was supposed to be, so she sat up and opened her eyes. The unfamiliar room gave her pause, but she located her phone on the other pillow, grabbed it and flipped it open. “Todd,” she mumbled, her voice heavy with sleep and confusion.

“Kate?” Buffy’s voice came from the earpiece, sounding worried. “Where are you?”

Kate blinked a few times, and as her brain woke up, she remembered where she was. “Oh. I crashed at Gibbs’s house. You’re gonna have to come get me; we need to be in to NCIS by ten.”

“Well that would have been good information to have!” Buffy huffed. “What are you… Oh, my God! Kate! You didn’t!”

Kate laughed. “No, I didn’t. I slept in the guest room.”

“Aw, man.” Buffy’s laughter was ruefully disappointed. “And here I thought I was gonna get some smoochie-tales this morning.”

“I didn’t say nothing happened,” Kate replied, grinning. “Can you bring me some clean clothes when you come? We can go get breakfast and I’ll tell you what we’re gonna try to do.”

“And what you did last night?” Buffy teased.

“Maybe,” Kate teased back. “If you’re lucky.”

“God, I need a boyfriend,” Buffy groaned and hung up.

Kate clambered out of bed, straightening the covers before stretching hard. She wondered why Gibbs hadn’t woken her before he left. When she opened the door, she got her answer: there was a note taped to the door, written in his strong, angular handwriting.

_Kate,_

_Went in early to talk to DiNozzo about how we’re gonna handle this thing. Figured you could use the sleep, so I didn’t wake you._

_Was thinking maybe we could go to dinner tonight. There’s a new sushi place in Arlington you haven’t been to yet, it’s pretty good._

_-J_

She smiled, folded the note and slipped it into her wallet, then padded across the hall to take a quick shower before Buffy got there. Under the hot spray of the water, she closed her eyes and replayed the events of the previous night in her mind. She had kissed Gibbs. Or, more accurately, he had kissed her… at least, the first time. She had definitely returned the favor with interest, and by the time they’d come up for air, her legs had been around his waist and both his hands under her shirt. That was when he told her to call him Jethro.

She shivered slightly in the humid air. God, those hands…

She grabbed his shampoo and deliberately set to washing her hair. She needed to be in her most professional mind-set when she went in today; she couldn’t afford to screw this up by being some moony-eyed teenager in love.

She froze solid, her hands still buried in her soapy hair. _Love?_ No… she couldn’t be in love. Could she?

She leaned back, rinsing her hair, and ran the idea through her head a few times. She’d had something of a crush on Gibbs since the first day she met him. She remembered with perfect clarity how easy it had been to get lost in his eyes or respond in kind to his smile, even that first night on Air Force One when everything had been so screwed up. So there had always been an attraction, which had not lessened even a little bit over the following two years. And now… well, now she was in the same place she’d been two years or so ago. As Tony had remarked the night before, she hadn’t changed a bit.

Had he?

Yes, she thought he had. It helped that their circumstances were drastically changed enough that he felt free now to express himself to her, something that could never have happened when they were still bound by agency constraints and the dread specter of Rule Twelve. But now, as they had acknowledged the previous night in his kitchen, things had changed and they were no longer bound.

And he, free to tell her how he felt, had wrapped his arms around her and made her feel hot and tingly and electric – and wet.

Could she be in love with him? Could she be in love with a man who could do that to her with nothing but his hands and his mouth without ever taking her clothes off, with a man who could simultaneously make her feel safer and more uncertain than she’d ever felt in her life? Could she be in love with a man who looked at her with those crystalline eyes like she was the only thing he ever wanted to lay his hands on for the rest of his life?

Oh, yes. She very definitely could.

She shut the water off and climbed out of the tub, wrapping up in the clean towel he had thoughtfully left on the counter next to a spare toothbrush. She borrowed his comb and ran it through her hair, then brushed her teeth with his toothpaste and reflected idly on how domestic it felt to smell and taste like him. “I could get used to this,” she confessed to her reflection.

A shout from downstairs brought her out of her introspective mood: Buffy had arrived with Kate’s clean clothing. Kate padded out of the bathroom, clutching the towel around her against the cold air, and shouted back. “Up here!”

Buffy came to the foot of the stairs and tossed Kate’s overnight bag at her; it arched up easily and Kate grabbed it out of the air. “Nice catch!”

“I’m getting better,” Kate replied, grinning. “Come on up.” She ducked back into the bathroom to pull on her clothes.

“So,” Buffy said from outside the door, “spill.”

Kate blushed. “There’s not much to tell,” she demurred, only to be cut off by a sarcastic ‘Ha!’ from her friend. “Okay, okay. We talked about what we’re gonna do today – he’s not happy about having to orchestrate a cover-up, but he understands why, so he’s gonna help. And we were talking… and we started to sort of get in a fight, because I put my foot in it again, and really, it’s very hard not to do that, especially when he takes everything I say as if I’m making some kind of crack about dying.”

“What? What did you say?” Buffy asked.

Dressed now in a green sweater and blue jeans, Kate pulled the door open to let the cooler air of the house come in and settle the humidity of the bathroom. “He said something about not liking me doing this, because it’s not safe. And I pointed out that it wasn’t really any less safe than working at NCIS.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “And he immediately went there. Of course.” She shrugged. “There’s not much you can do to avoid that. It’s just gonna take him time to get past it.”

“What if he never does?”

“Then he never does.” Buffy shrugged, then snorted. “Listen to me, giving you relationship advice like I’m Dear Abby. Don’t listen to me, Kate. Of the two most successful long term relationships I’ve ever had to date, one was with a vampire and ended with a lot of people dead, and the other one was with a guy in a top-secret super-soldier program whose commanding officer tried to kill me. I am not the right place for you to find your advice for the lovelorn.”

Kate stared at her. “A vampire?”

Buffy shook her head. “I’ll tell you about it sometime.” She made an impatient gesture with her hands. “Come on. You promised me breakfast. A hungry Slayer is a cranky Slayer.”

Kate laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

 

Ziva David looked up as two women strolled into the bullpen and a small divot appeared between her eyebrows. She had hoped never to see this woman again, but here was Caitlin Todd, still alive and well and looking for all the world like she owned the place. “I have an appointment with an Agent Gibbs,” she said imperiously.

Ziva opened her mouth to reply, but was beaten to the punch by the arrival of Tony. “Can I help you, ladies?” he asked smoothly. He shot Ziva a look that clearly ordered her to play along, so she shut her mouth and waited.

“Are you Agent Gibbs?” Buffy asked, her expression one of boredom.

“No, I’m Agent DiNozzo,” Tony replied. “Agent Gibbs is in with the Director.”

“Good,” Kate said, examining her fingernails. “Maybe we can end this farce before it begins.”

Buffy scoffed. “Only if these retreads still know how to follow orders.”

Tony winced. Ziva glared. McGee came out of the elevator with coffee and approached hesitantly. “Excuse me, Agent Todd, Agent Summers?”

They turned in unison to inspect him. “Yes?” Buffy drawled.

McGee offered the coffee. “Director Shepard is coming down to speak to you both in just a moment. She asked me to make sure you were comfortable. Would you like to join me in our conference room?”

“Yes, we would,” Kate responded in her most gratified tone.

Buffy nodded, then favored McGee with a look and a slight smirk. “This one has potential,” she commented to Kate, who had to bite the inside of her lip to keep from laughing as McGee led them up the stairs to the loft and then into the conference room.

Once the door was shut behind them, Kate had to laugh. “God, I’m glad I don’t have to do that every day. I don’t know if I could stand the strain on my ribs.”

McGee’s face broke into a relieved smile. “You even had me a little worried for a second there, Kate,” he commented. “I was afraid all the power had gone to your head.”

Kate reached out and gave him an impulsive hug. “Not a chance. So how are you doing, McGee? Not still letting Tony terrorize you, I hope.”

McGee grinned. “Not as much any more. I’m getting better about it.”

“I can tell,” she commented. “You aren’t stuttering any more.”

“Not as much,” he agreed. Then he turned and offered his hand to Buffy. “We haven’t really had a chance to talk,” he said. “Tim McGee.”

Buffy shook his hand. “Buffy Summers,” she offered. “Nice to meet you.”

A tap on the door warned them, and Kate and Buffy dropped into chairs quickly, assuming indolent poses as the door was opened and a tall, slender, red-haired woman strolled in, looking icy. She was followed immediately by Gibbs, who looked thunderous. “Agent Summers? Agent Todd?” the woman asked. “I’m Director Shepard.”

“Director,” Kate acknowledged. “I assume since we’re sitting here rather than wasting our time in an interrogation room that you’ve been briefed on the situation.”

“That’s correct,” Shepard replied, seating herself. Gibbs stayed standing, continuing to look furious. Shepard spoke. “I’ve received my orders from the SECNAV to allow you to complete your mission without any hindrance from NCIS.”

“Good.” Kate stood. “Then there’s no reason for any of us to waste any more time here, is there?”

“I’d like to know what the nature of your mission is.”

Buffy laughed her best Cordelia laugh and said, “You and everyone else, Director Shepard, all the way up to the Commander in Chief. Unfortunately, even _he_ doesn’t have the necessary security clearance. Our mission is a matter of national security, and that’s all you need to know.”

“National security being handled by a British government agency?” Gibbs scoffed.

Buffy smiled a shark’s grin. “Who said we were British government? The IWC is an international organization. We answer to no one but ourselves.”

“If you expect NCIS to cooperate with –”

“We don’t.” Kate cut across Shepard’s angry words easily. “We don’t expect, require, request or want NCIS’s cooperation with anything. We demand that NCIS get the hell out of the way when we’re investigating a case, and let us do our jobs. Other than that, there’s nothing NCIS has that we need.” She took a sip of her coffee, then placed it on the table. “If there was nothing else, we’ll see ourselves out.”

They made it almost all the way out the door of the conference room when Shepard spoke again. “You’re looking well these days, Agent Todd.”

Kate paused, forced herself not to look at Gibbs, and raised a chilly eyebrow toward Shepard. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Director Shepard. Have we met?”

“Not formally,” the director replied, rising to her feet and stepping toward Kate with an expression of triumph. “But I was in attendance at your funeral.”


	4. Chaos Theory IV: Minimum Complexity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate’s cover is blown; now what?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can’t shake the feeling I’ve used one of these gags before….

_Stay cool. Stay calm._

Kate repeated those four words over and over to herself as she looked Jenny Shepard in the eye, and tried hard to project them mentally to Buffy and Gibbs as she debated how to respond. Her brain in a whirl, she settled for a raised eyebrow and a defense she’d fallen back on more than once since middle school. “Just exactly what are you implying, Director?”

“I’m not implying anything,” Shepard responded. “I’m stating outright that I know who you are and unless you want your cover blown, you’re going to tell me everything I want to know.”

Kate stepped to the side, allowing Buffy to re-enter the room and shut the door behind her. Then she gave Shepard a slight smile. “All right, Director. What exactly do you want to know?”

“Who are you working for? CIA?”

“IWC,” Kate responded. She pulled out her ID and showed it to the red-haired woman. “We’re not the CIA or any other governmental organization you can think of from any government in the world. We’re just the IWC.”

“What is your mission?”

Kate shook her head. “I can’t tell you that. You don’t have clearance. Besides, you’re safer not knowing.”

Shepard’s eyes narrowed. “How do I get clearance?”

“You don’t.” Buffy entered the conversation, her voice like ice.

“Who makes that decision?” Shepard demanded.

“I do,” Buffy replied. “I am the ranking IWC representative on this continent, and I make the calls.”

Shepard’s eyes gleamed. “And what exactly is your position within the IWC?”

Buffy smirked. “Deputy director.”

Jenny sat down, gesturing to the chairs Buffy and Kate had been occupying. “Please, sit down. We’re going to be here for awhile.”

“No, we aren’t,” Buffy replied. “I’ll tell you what I think you need to know, and then Kate and I are going to leave. You’re not going to ask any questions beyond that.”

Shepard’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think you quite understand the situation here.”

“No, you’re the one who doesn’t understand,” Buffy snapped. “The IWC has been operating on this continent for over seven hundred years. We have had authorization from every centralized American government from George the Third through the First Continental Congress all the way up to the man in the Oval Office right now to operate on American soil in whatever manner we see fit. That call from you got earlier – I believe it was from the Secretary of the Navy? It wasn’t an idle threat, and if you interfere with my mission in any way, I’ll see to it that you’re cleaning out your desk by the end of the week. Do I make myself clear, Director?”

Kate blinked, her eyes flicking to Gibbs, who was looking shocked, and back to Buffy. She’d never seen Buffy like this before, and the intensity of the expression on the Slayer’s face was a bit disconcerting. Shepard narrowed her eyes and spoke again. “Who do you think you are that you have the kind of authority to talk to me like that?”

Buffy smiled, and it was not a pleasant expression. “My name is Buffy Summers,” she said coolly, “and if you screw with me, I’ll be your worst nightmare.” She pulled the door open again. “I’d say it’s been a pleasure, Director, but my mother raised me not to tell lies.” She stepped out into the hallway, Kate directly behind her, and the two of them entered the elevator and stood shoulder to shoulder as the silver doors slid closed.

Once they were gone, Shepard turned to Gibbs. “How long have you known that Agent Todd wasn’t dead?”

Gibbs shrugged. “Few weeks.”

“Why was this information not brought to my attention?”

“Didn’t see any reason to,” he said. “She wasn’t looking for her job back.”

“I want to know what else you know about this.”

 _Nothing I’m gonna tell you_ , he thought, and made a mental note to say something nice to Tony. Deciding on discretion as the better part of valor, he remained silent.

 

Back in her office, Jenny Shepard ran her fingers gently across her keyboard, trying to decide where to begin. The conversation with the SECNAV was still fresh in her mind, overlaying the conversation with Buffy Summers and the formerly dead Caitlin Todd. She’d been ordered in no uncertain terms not to interfere with the business of the IWC – and she still didn’t know what those initials stood for – but no one had told her she couldn’t research them and find out anything she could about them.

Jethro was hiding something from her. She knew that. They had been lovers long enough that it was obvious to her when he knew more than he was telling. One thing that could be certain about Jethro Gibbs, though, was that he was loyal, and if he had decided that providing Jenny Shepard any information would compromise his loyalty to Kate Todd, he was going to choose Kate Todd every time.

That was fine. Jenny hadn’t gotten into this office by being dependent on what other people told her.

She started with a database search and found some very interesting information. According to NCIS, Caitlin Todd was dead. According to the United States government and the British government, however, she was alive and well. The two identities were identical in every way, until the month before Agent Todd’s death. According to the British government, that month, Caitlin Todd had applied for and been granted a visa to work in the United Kingdom, and she had been hired at the IWC, starting work there – in person – the day before Agent Todd was killed.

Jenny began taking notes on this new identity, trying to unravel the strands. After joining the IWC, Kate Todd had all but vanished from existence outside of requisite tax paperwork. She had not reappeared until a few weeks prior to being arrested at Quantico. At that point, she had been granted British citizenship by a special dispensation from the Queen, which had apparently been a personal favor to the Director of the IWC, one Rupert Giles.

From there, Kate Todd returned to the United States on an open visa, along with Buffy Summers, who was an American citizen from California with a juvenile criminal record and a spotty adult work history prior to her own employment by the IWC, where she had apparently been hired on as Deputy Director in the fall of 2003.

She pushed away from her computer and crossed her arms, staring at the monitor with a furrowed brow. “It doesn’t make sense!” she complained to her empty office.

She rolled back to the computer and did a simple Google search of Buffy Summers’s name, expecting to find nothing and surprised yet again when the first hit that came back was the main page of the Sunnydale Memorial Academy for Girls, located in Castle Combe, a small town on the southern edge of the Cotswolds, twelve miles from Bath. It was an exclusive girls’ prep school, admission by invitation or upon achieving acceptable results from what sounded like a stringent entrance examination. Buffy Summers was listed as the school’s Deputy Headmistress; the Headmaster was none other than Rupert Giles.

She Googled the IWC – searching by initials only, since she had no idea what they stood for. She came up with several private companies both domestic and abroad; nothing in England at all, and nothing connected to Buffy Summers, Rupert Giles, or their so-exclusive girls’ prep school.

This was clearly going to take more work. Jenny picked up the phone, accessed her secure outgoing line, and called England.

 

The call that came in to Giles’s office at nine a.m. wasn’t the one he’d been hoping for, but it was certainly the antidote to a boring day.

_“Rupert? Leonard Hastings. Got a moment?”_

“Certainly, Leonard. What can I do for Scotland Yard this morning?”

_“More a matter of what the Yard can do for you, old chap. Someone’s asking questions they’ve no business asking.”_

“Oh dear.” Giles pulled his glasses off and began to clean them. “Who, Leonard?”

_“American bird, name of Shepard. Jennifer Shepard. She’s the director of something over there called NCIS; it’s some sort of military job. She’s asking questions about your new girl, name of Todd, the one we put the papers through for. She’s also asking about young Miss Summers.”_

“Oh, dear,” Giles said again. “Has she found anything out?”

_“She’s connected the school to the Coalition. She doesn’t know what the Coalition is, though. Can’t get past IWC, and can’t get anyone to tell her what it stands for.”_

Giles sighed. “Apparently connections aren’t enough for this woman. I suppose I’ll have to make a trip to America, then.”

 _“Better you than me, old chap,”_ Leonard replied cheerfully. _“Can’t stand Yanks, personally. And they say this one’s worse than usual. Throwing her weight around, thinking her position allows her information her superiors don’t even have.”_

Giles muttered a few choice words under his breath. “Thanks for the call, Leonard; I appreciate the warning.”

_“Not at all, Rupert. ‘S what old school chums are for, innit? And it’s not like you haven’t got my Amelia there at your school that I’m watching out for, eh? How’s she coming along, then?”_

Giles spent a few minutes chatting with Leonard about the progress of his youngest daughter Amelia, who was training under Willow to become a witch, and after hanging up, he buzzed out to his secretary. “Mrs. Cunningham, could you please clear my schedule for the next two days? I’m afraid I’ve been called away on an emergency to America.”

“Of course, Mr. Giles,” came the young woman’s cheerful voice. “I’ll make the necessary calls.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Cunningham.” He disconnected the phone, sighed again, and then stood, slipping out the back door of his office and up the stairs to his suite to pack.

 

The smell of fresh coffee emanated up the stairs when Kate stumbled, bleary-eyed, out of her room, and she gave a soft moan of thanks for the considerate child who had turned the pot on. She padded barefoot past Buffy’s closed door and headed down the stairs, not even noticing that Sofia’s door was still closed as well, simply following her nose toward the kitchen. The extra-long tee shirt she wore swirled around her knees as she descended, and she ran a hand through her sleep-wild hair as she pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen.

And shrieked in shock at the sight of a man in a three-piece tweed suit sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper.

By the time she got her composure back, Giles was stumbling over himself to apologize for startling her, and Buffy was standing behind her, dressed in a white tee shirt and green boxer shorts, holding a crossbow and looking ready to kill. Sofie, in Tweety Bird pajamas, was behind Buffy, her hands wrapped around the hilt of a sword that was as long as she was tall. The four of them stood there in a bizarre tableau for probably thirty seconds before Kate got the giggles, followed immediately by Sofie, who had to put the sword down before she dropped it on her foot when she began whooping with laughter.

Grumbling with wasted adrenaline rush, Buffy lowered her crossbow and glared at Giles. He looked back at her with mingled amusement and apology, his lips twitching, and finally Buffy had to sigh and allow a small smile herself. “Well,” she said over the sound of Kate giggling and Sofie whooping, “It’s more effective than a clock radio, that’s for sure.”

Giles’s smile was deeply abashed, and his cheeks were dusted faintly with red. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said again, but Kate waved his apologies off.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, patting his arm as she passed him, heading for the coffee pot. “We needed something to knock the wool out.”

Still laughing, Sofie replaced her sword in the rack and headed back upstairs, claiming the first shower by default. Buffy dropped into a chair at the table as Kate followed Sofie upstairs to pull on some pants. “So what brings you here so early this morning and without warning?”

“We have a small problem,” Giles told her. “The director of NCIS seems to be unwilling to accept ‘no’ for an answer.”

Buffy sighed. “Gibbs said she might not. He came by last night after he finally got out of there, said she stomped around all day and kept asking him the same questions over and over in different ways, trying to get something out of him.”

“Well, we’re going to have to put a stop to this. I got a call from Leonard Hastings at the Yard. Amelia Hastings’s father, you recall?”

Buffy nodded. “Cute little pixie haircut, braces, freckles?”

“That’s the one. Her father works at Scotland Yard; he called this morning and said this Miss Shepard is asking questions she’s been told not to ask.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “She didn’t strike me as the type with enough sense to know when to quit. I can’t believe she’s got that kind of position, after the stuff Gibbs told us about what happened last year. She almost got Tony DiNozzo killed being obsessive and stupid.” Then she paused. “This morning? Giles, it’s only six-thirty.”

“It’s eleven-thirty in London,” he reminded her, and smiled when she put her face in her palm. “Have some coffee.”

“I think I will,” Buffy replied, standing and moving to the pot as Kate came back down, still barefoot but now wearing flannel pants under her long tee shirt, and with her hair tied back in a quick ponytail. “Shepard’s causing problems,” Buffy summed up succinctly.

Kate groaned, dropping into the chair Buffy had just vacated. “God, what is her malfunction?”

“She’s a grade-A world class bitch?” Buffy offered.

“Who’s a grade-A world class bitch?” Sofie inquired, stepping through the door while running a brush through her damp hair.

“Language!” Kate admonished. “And take your hairbrush out of the kitchen, please.”

“Stuffy,” Sofie accused without heat, leaving again.

Kate rolled her eyes. “Deliver me from teenagers.”

Buffy laughed softly, sitting down between Kate and Giles. “Tell me, Giles, how did you put up with all of us for so many years without strangling us or beating us to death with our own equipment?”

He smiled. “Zen. And rather a lot of deep breathing. Some counting. In Sumerian.”

Buffy laughed, reaching out to squeeze his hand. Then her face turned serious. “Did I ever thank you for everything you did for me?”

Kate slipped out of her chair as unobtrusively as possible and left the kitchen.

Giles studied Buffy’s face intently. “No,” he finally said softly. “You didn’t.”

“Well, I should have,” she said, her face sorrowful. “Would have made things a lot easier. I don’t think I knew how good I had it back then.”

He smiled slightly. “Buffy, it’s not neces-”

“Yes, it is!” Buffy exclaimed. “Yes it is, because I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I know that’s unusual for me, but go with me on this, okay? Because it occurred to me that if I’ve been feeling unappreciated after everything that happened – with all of us – that you probably are, too. Because nobody ever apologized to you, either, for all the times you got hit on the head or hurt or, god, even blinded, and left alone to have to take care of yourself. It… look… the way we treated each other, and I don’t mean just me or just you. I mean all of us. The way we treated each other, back in Sunnydale, it was awful, and if I could go back and do it over again, I totally would. Because nobody deserves to be treated that way. And honestly? I can’t believe you can even still stand to be around me.”

“Stand to be around you?” he repeated, dumbfounded. “Of course I can stand to be around you, you silly girl! I love you!”

She stared at him, shocked. “W…what?”

He replayed his last few sentences over in his mind and let out an explosive sigh. “Bugger.”

“Not in my kitchen,” Buffy replied instantly. Off his startled expression, she added, “I looked that up. I know what it means.”

“Ah.” He shook his head. “Well, there you are. I do love you, you silly girl. You’re closer in my heart than anyone else, and I – stop looking at me like that; I’m not talking about romantic love.”

She relaxed instantly, and the wary, almost frightened look left her face. “Oh, thank God. I love you, too, Giles, but I was not looking forward to having to let you down easy or give you the let’s-just-be-friends talk.”

He laughed. “That will hardly be necessary. You’re a lovely young woman, Buffy, but you’re much younger than I and you’ve a lot of growing left to do.”

She made a face at him. “I’m mature enough to be your girlfriend.”

“Oh?” he raised an eyebrow. “What, then, could you possibly have against the idea?”

Buffy gnawed her lip. “Well, first of all, there’s the whole romance-between-coworkers thing. And we know how well that ends up; look at me and Riley. But there’s also… well, there’s a guy.”

“Really.” He smiled. “You’ve found someone, then.”

“Not exactly.” She sat back. “He doesn’t know I’m interested. Not yet. Eventually, though, I think I wanna go there. So… yeah. I love you like my family, Giles, but I’m really glad you’re not into me that way.”

He laughed, reaching out to draw her into a hug. “No fear, Buffy. We shall continue as always.”

She nodded, then pulled away. “I need to go get a shower.”

He sat back, picking up his newspaper. “Do that,” he said. “I shall continue reading about the deplorable state of local politics.”

“I give you forty-five seconds after I get up the stairs,” Buffy replied, heading for the door.

His brow furrowed. “I don’t follow.”

Buffy grinned. “Kate’s upstairs right now sitting on Sofie to keep her out of here so we could talk. As soon as it’s obvious we’re done talking for now, Sofie’s gonna be down here talking your ear off.”

He smiled. “I welcome the interruption.”

 

Gibbs answered his phone, hoping that his team would have finally caught a case. “Yeah. Gibbs.”

“It’s Kate,” she said, and he nearly groaned.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Your Director is about to cause an international incident,” Kate reported. “Buffy, Giles and I are on our way to the Navy Yard now.”

“Oh, Christ,” Gibbs muttered.

“Yeah. Any chance you can catch a case or go question some witnesses or something? I don’t want you guys getting caught in the crossfire.”

“Thanks for the heads up.”

“How about Italian tonight?” she asked casually.

He paused, briefly short-circuited. “What?”

She gave a low laugh that sent tingles up his spine. “Italian. For dinner? I was thinking about this place in Georgetown that does the best scallopini you ever put in your mouth.”

“Sounds…” He cleared his throat, glanced left and right, and then tried again. “Sounds great. Seven?”

“Seven it is. Now get out of there.” She hung up.

He stood. “Grab your gear.”

Tony nearly danced out of his chair. “What’s the case, boss?”

“Miraculous return from the dead,” Gibbs replied dryly. “We need to make ourselves scarce.” He glanced up at the clock. “McGee.”

“Yeah, Boss?”

He allowed himself a small smirk as the four of them piled into the elevator. “Where’s a good place to have lunch in Norfolk?”

 

Kate led the way into the director’s office, walking past the receptionist’s desk without so much as a sideways glance and pushing the door open. She stepped to the side, her back to the silver panel, and held the door while Giles and Buffy entered, then shut it and leaned against it from the inside.

Shepard was halfway out of her desk by the time Kate shut the door. “Excuse me!” she began. “Just exactly who do you think you are?”

“My name is Rupert Giles, Madame,” Giles replied smoothly, but with deadly cold in his voice. “I am the director of the IWC. I believe you know my associates, Buffy Summers and Caitlin Todd. We are here to discuss your unauthorized inquiries into programs beyond your security level and outside the scope of what we consider to be your business.”

“I am the director of NCIS,” Shepard snapped back. “I have authorization to know any detail I need to know about investigations my agents are conducting.”

“No, Madame, you do not,” Giles replied, his voice still icy. “And when it comes to the activities of the IWC, you most assuredly do not have authorization to know anything that my operatives choose not to tell you. I am here to provide you with a final opportunity to preserve your position. You may either voluntarily cease and desist your inquiries or I can contact the Secretary of the Navy and you may accept the consequences that follow.”

Jenny sat back down in her chair. The last thing she needed was this man getting the SECNAV involved; she _had_ , after all, been told not to interfere. If this Rupert Giles chose to classify her inquiries as interference, she could find herself in serious, career-ending trouble. She took a deep breath and tried one last-ditch effort. “Can I be read into whatever program you’re running?”

“No,” Giles replied, “you cannot. Your history indicates that you are a security risk.”

“Me?” she nearly squeaked. “A security risk? How the hell do you classify me as a security risk?”

“Obsessive behavior patterns, for one thing.” Buffy spoke for the first time since entering the room. “You very nearly lost your Directorship recently over your obsession with a French arms dealer named Rene Benoit, isn’t that true?”

The tightening of Shepard’s facial muscles was all the reply she offered. Kate fought back a smirk when Giles spoke again. “The IWC cannot afford to risk being compromised by someone who is, quite frankly, undependable and exhibits evidence of instability. I want your word that you will cease all unauthorized inquiries immediately and that you will not interfere with my operatives, their mission, or the agents who are assisting them in completing their mission. If I cannot have your word, I will contact the SECNAV and have you replaced.” He paused, glanced in Kate’s direction, and delivered the killing blow. “I believe Operative Todd has experience with NCIS; perhaps she would be better suited to this office than you are.”

“You have my word,” Shepard ground out through clenched teeth.

Giles nodded. “I trust, then, that we will not need to meet again. Good day, Madame.” He turned on his heel then and moved smoothly through the door that Kate opened, followed by Buffy and then Kate herself, who did not look back as she exited.

 

“Was it a total nightmare after we left?”

“Wouldn’t know. We didn’t get back from Norfolk until after 1700 and we never even went back upstairs.”

Kate laughed, sitting back in her chair and taking a sip of very good red wine. “Well, I hope that worked. If it doesn’t, Buffy and I are going to have to engineer a vampire attack, and those are always really risky.” Then she leaned forward again, putting her elbows on the table and giving him an excellent view of her cleavage. “I don’t want to talk about work tonight. So. Tony says you have a new boat; tell me about it.”

He swallowed hard, forcibly dragging his eyes up from her plunging décolletage to her face, where her knowing smirk told him she’d done it on purpose. She was wearing that outfit – the one she’d said she needed like a hole in the head – and Buffy had been right about it: Kate in that outfit was nothing if not sex on legs. Very nice legs. He licked his lips slightly and began to tell her about the boat: its length, its style, the type of wood he’d chosen to build it and why. She asked thoughtful questions that, while exposing her ignorance to the world of hands-on woodworking, also indicated that she was interested in learning – specifically from him.

By the time their food arrived, she had extricated a promise from him to take her back to the basement later and show her why he preferred hand tools to power tools, aside from the obvious lack of electrical outlets in the basement. He asked her about her family and between bites of exceptional tortellini, she gave him the full rundown on her parents, brothers, sister, aunts, uncles and cousins. She stopped when she realized his eyes had begun to glaze, grinning. “We’re a Scottish family,” she explained. “We keep track of everyone. I’ve got a list of cousins all the way out to eighth or ninth removed.”

“Are you back in touch with them yet?”

Kate looked down at her plate. “Not yet.”

He reached out to touch her hand. “Not gonna get any easier the longer you let it slide.”

“I know,” she sighed. “I just… how the hell do I explain this to them? How do I explain to my very devout family that I’ve made like Lazarus and now instead of being a federal agent, I’m some kind of rogue demon hunter?”

“Don’t.”

She blinked at him. “You said what?”

He shrugged. “Don’t. Tell them something else. Make something up. Tell them you were deep undercover. Blame it on NCIS – tell them we ordered you to do it. You didn’t have a choice in the matter. People would have died. The whole deal. They’ll probably be so glad you’re alive that they won’t _care_ what you tell them.”

Kate cocked her head and studied him. “That might actually work.” She looked down at her food, then put her fork down with a sigh. “This is delicious, and if I eat any more of it, I’ll explode.”

He laughed softly, allowed her to change the painful subject, and signaled for the check. She tried to pay, insisting that she had asked him out, but he refused. “The day I let a woman pay for dinner on a date is the day they stick me in the ground.” After signing the credit card slip, he led her outside to the truck he had picked her up in, and drove them back to his house for the promised visit with his boat.

Kate called Buffy on the ride over. Buffy reported that she was staying in that night; Sofie needed math help and Buffy wanted a night off from Slaying anyway. Kate wished her a good evening, hanging up as they pulled into Gibbs’s driveway.

He led her through the house, her hand in his, pausing in the kitchen to grab an ice bucket and some beer. Then he brought her downstairs and let her look over the boat, running her fingers across the smoothly-sanded wood and smiling at him across the bow with those sinful eyes. “She’s gorgeous,” Kate said softly, and Gibbs found himself agreeing, but he wasn’t thinking about the boat.

He cleared his throat again and wrapped a piece of sandpaper around a sanding block, placing it in her hand when she reached for it and then lifting her hands, his fingers tracing lightly down her arms, to place them against the wood. “You move with the grain,” he said softly, resting his hands on top of hers and guiding her movements, his body forming against hers.

She shivered slightly under his touch, feeling the warmth of him against her back and the obvious presence of his thickening erection. She moved against him as they sanded together, keeping her back firmly pressed against his front, and was rewarded by a barely-suppressed moan and a slight tightening of his fingers over her hands. She turned her head, looking over her shoulder into his face, which was mere inches from her own. “I think I see the appeal of working with hand tools,” she said softly, letting a tiny, wicked smile slip out onto her face.

Moments later, her back was against the smooth, curved planks and his mouth was on hers, one of his thighs between hers and his hands buried in her hair.

 

When the doorbell rang a little after eight, Buffy was in the kitchen making a sandwich. She wandered into the living room, wondering who it could be. After taking a look through the peephole, she opened the door, speaking with surprise. “Agent McGee, hi.”

“Hi.” He studied her for a moment nervously and then said, “Can I come in?”

Buffy stepped back from the door, offering a wordless invitation, and he stepped across the threshold, looking down at her with a slight smile on his face. “Sorry to bother you so late. I, um… I had something for Kate, and I thought I might bring it by for her.”

Buffy looked down and saw that he held a book in his hands, brand-new from the looks of it, in a glossy red-and-white slipcover. “Well, she’s not here,” Buffy said, “but if you want to leave it…”

“Oh, sure, no problem. I just… well, I wrote it, you know, and I wanted to give her a copy. Because she’s in it.”

Buffy leaned over to look at the book’s cover _Deep Six_ by Thom E. Gemcity. “Thom E. Gemcity, that’s you?”

He nodded. “It’s an anagram for Timothy McGee.”

“Oh!” Buffy grinned. “Cool. My friend Xander read this book. He went on and on about how good it was.”

“Really?” McGee was obviously flattered. “Wow.”

Buffy grinned. “If you don’t have anything to do, why don’t you hang out for awhile? I’ll tell Xander and he’ll be jealous.”

“Oh, I – I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

Buffy waved a dismissive hand. “You’re not intruding on anything, I promise. I was actually just making a bacon sandwich. Want one?”

“Oh, uh… sure.” He followed her back into the kitchen, perching on one of the barstools and watching her lay thick strips of bacon in the frying pan.

She pushed her sandwich over in front of him. “Here; eat this before it gets cold.”

He took a bite, studying her and casting around for topics of conversation. “So, um… how do you like D.C. so far?”

“I love it,” Buffy replied, grinning. “It’s so pretty. I can’t wait till the spring; Kate’s been telling me all about the cherry blossoms. I’ve never seen anything like that before. California’s either green in the winter or dead and dry in the summer. And England’s nice, but there again it’s either green in the summer or dead and freezing cold in the winter.”

“It gets pretty cold here in the winter,” McGee warned her. “But we don’t get nearly as much snow as you probably got.”

“Feet and feet of it? It’s miserable there.” Buffy made a face.

McGee laughed. “No, not that much.”

Buffy made her sandwich and slid onto the barstool next to him. “So, Kate tells me you’re a big time computer geek guy.”

McGee nods, wondering what else Kate might have told Buffy. “I have a masters in computer forensics.”

“Really? Where from?”

“M.I.T.”

“No kidding.” Buffy looked impressed. “I didn’t have the S.A.T. scores for someplace like that. Though I did get accepted to Northwestern.”

“Hey, Northwestern’s a good school,” Tim replied. “Is that where you graduated?”

Buffy shook her head. “I didn’t graduate. Couldn’t get back in after I died.”

“Oh.” Tim paused, looking down at his plate for a second. “If it’s not too personal, may I ask what happened?”

“When I died?” Buffy gave him a humorless grin and finished off her sandwich. “You can ask, but it’s a long story.”

“Oh, well, you don’t have to –”

“No, I’ll tell you,” Buffy said. “I just mean we’d be more comfortable in the living room.

“Oh.” Tim paused, looking into her eyes, and he smiled. “Okay. If you’re sure you don’t mind.”

Buffy smiled back. There was something about this man’s eyes. “I don’t mind.”

She got them both a beer out of the refrigerator and took him in the living room, curling up in the corner of the sectional and facing him where he sat on the short end. They touched their bottles together briefly before drinking, and Buffy sighed slightly. “Okay. So… to explain about me dying, I have to explain about my sister.”

She told him the whole story, starting with when she learned that her sister wasn’t really her sister, through Riley leaving, her mother dying, and everything that surrounded those events, culminating with her own death. “I’ve done some talking to some people since then,” she added when she’d finished. “Well, one guy in particular. We have counselors and stuff on staff now, since a lot of the girls need help dealing when they find out they’re Slayers. I pretended for a long time that what I did was this great sacrifice thing, you know? Save Dawn, save the world, blah blah blah. But what I really did was kill myself.”

McGee studied her face, amazed at her calm and her poise as she discussed the topic. He shook his head. “I don’t think I could deal with this as well as you have.”

She laughed. “I didn’t deal well at all, Tim. Keep in mind this was six years ago. And six years ago, I was a big ol’ mess. I’m better now. I’m not perfect, you know, I’m not… fixed. But I’m not crazy any more, and I was for a long time.” She paused, then laughed. “And look at me, just dumping all my issues on you.”

He smiled. “No, it’s okay. I did ask.”

“Yes, you did. Keep that in mind next time – I tend to be Overshare Girl these days.”

His smile didn’t waver – if anything, it got bigger. “That’s okay,” he said softly. “I don’t mind.” They studied one another in silence for a long moment, and then he blurted, “Are you… seeing anyone?”

She blinked, and her mouth quirked. “No.”

He swallowed hard. “Do you think…” He paused and shook his head. “Would you like to go out sometime?”

The quirk of her lips turned into a smile. “I’d love to. When?”

 _Oh, what the hell?_ McGee thought, and threw caution to the wind. “How about now?”

 

Kate moaned when Gibbs released her lips. “Jethro,” she whispered, and his mouth returned, tasting the skin of her jaw and working its way down her neck to her pulse point. It was racing under the touch of his tongue, and he dared slightly, nipping the skin with his teeth. When she shuddered beneath him, he did it again.

The air between them was beginning to grow thick with the scent of her arousal, the smell of her musk intoxicating him. He dragged his tongue across her collarbone and down into that plunging neckline to taste the softness she’d been teasing him with all night. Her hands clenched in his hair, pulling him closer.

His own rough hands tugged her shirt out of her waistband, sliding up her back and reveling in the warmth and softness of her skin. “Kate,” he whispered against her breast. “God, Katie.”

Her nails scratched gently through his hair, and he shuddered, pressing his hips against her thigh. He was rock-hard now under his jeans, and she rolled her hips against him. His fingers clenched on her back in response, then slid upward, finding the clip of her bra and unhooking it easily. His hands slid around her body, under the lace, to cup her breasts, finding and teasing her nipples into hard little pebbles. Her head fell back against the wood and she moaned his name again, her voice high and thick with desire.

He lifted her shirt and bra off over her head, tossing them onto the workbench, and lowered his mouth to her breast, his hands resting on her hips and hers wrapped around his head, holding him close. Her breath came in high, sharp pants that told him she was enjoying what he was doing – really a lot – and he moved after a moment to her other breast, showing it the same appreciation he’d shown the first one. Then his right hand slid down her hip, finding the skin of her thigh under the hem of her skirt, and began to push the leather upwards.

That was when her hand came down on his, stopping his motion. He looked up, confused, and met her desire-dark eyes. “Katie?”

“Not here,” she said softly. “I’m not making love with you for the first time on a concrete floor in heels up against your boat.”

He grinned. “Wouldn’t want you to twist an ankle, would we?”

“No,” she replied, also grinning. “Wouldn’t want you to throw your back out trying to hold me up, either.”

“You aren’t that heavy,” he objected. “I’ve held you up before.”

“I didn’t say anything about being _heavy_ ,” she replied, pulling him down for a hard kiss. Her tongue invaded his mouth, owning the kiss and owning him, and her body moved against his and he suddenly realized what she meant. He reached down and wrapped his hands around her ass, lifting her up into his arms. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he started up the basement stairs, pausing only when her kisses made him dizzy.

He said a brief prayer of thanksgiving that his bedroom was on the first floor – he didn’t think he could have made it up a second flight of stairs with her wiggling like that – and dropped her onto his bed. She lay there, giggling up at him, and he reached down, found the zip of her skirt on her left side, and pulled. A moment later her skirt was on the floor and she was looking up at him, her smile gone sultry, dressed in nothing but a lace thong and those impossibly high heeled boots.

He sank to his knees between her feet and pushed her thighs apart, breathing in her delicious, addictive scent. “God, Katie,” he whispered again before leaning forward and taking her in his mouth.

 

“Oh,” Buffy said. “I… I want to, I do, but I can’t really go anywhere – Sofie’s upstairs, and I hate to leave her by herself.”

McGee grinned. “We can take her with us.”

Buffy bit her lip. “You don’t mind?”

“Not at all. We could go get ice cream and walk around the Lincoln Memorial; how’s that sound?”

Buffy studied him for a second, found only sincerity in his face, and nodded. “Sounds great,” she said, grinning. “Let me go get ready. Give me ten minutes?”

“Sure.” He watched her go, and marveled at himself. Then he started to grin. Tony would never believe this.

Buffy bounced upstairs and tapped on Sofia’s door. “Sofie! How about some ice cream?”

“Sure,” the girl responded, pulling her door open. “What kind?”

“Whatever kind you want. Remember Agent McGee, from NCIS? He’s taking us out for ice cream and a walk around the Lincoln Memorial. Get your shoes on.”

Sofie stared at Buffy. “You’re going on a date with Agent McGee?”

“ _We_ are going on a date with Agent McGee,” Buffy corrected. “You’re coming, too. And you’re going to be nice, and you’re going to put your shoes on before you make him wait.” She turned away to prevent further discussion, hurrying into her own room to change and do something with her hair.

Nine and a half minutes later, both of them were descending the staircase, and Tim was standing in the living room door, leaning against the doorframe. He blinked and then grinned. “Well, nobody can say I’m not out with the two prettiest girls in D.C. tonight.”

Buffy blushed; Sofie grinned wide. “Thank you for taking me, Agent McGee,” the girl chirped.

“No problem, Sofie. But call me Tim.”

At the car, he opened the doors for both of them, handing Buffy into the passenger seat in gentlemanly fashion and admonishing Sofie to put her seat belt on. Then, smiling, he slid behind the wheel and started the car.

 

Of all the things Gibbs had expected Kate Todd to be, a screamer was not one of them – and yet there she was, lying dreamily on the crisp white sheets of his bed, the echoes of her scream still ringing in his head. He chuckled as he stood, stripping his clothing off, and she grinned, reaching down to unzip her boots and kick them off into the floor. “You look absolutely scrumptious naked,” she advised him once he was standing bare before her. “I should tie you up and keep you that way.”

He chuckled again, moving forward to crawl on top of her. “Maybe I’ll tie _you_ up instead.”

She gave a low, sensuous moan and arched up to whisper in his ear. “Do you want me to call you Sir, or Master?”

With a groan, he pushed into her, and she arched again, her nails biting into the skin of his shoulders. “I want you to call me God,” he whispered back, and began to thrust.

She went wild underneath him, her legs wrapping around his hips to pull him harder and deeper into her, her head thrashing, her hips rising up to meet his on every stroke. Her hands clenched on his back, her nails raking lines across his skin, and her voice poured from her mouth, between pants for air and bites to his chest and neck, begging him to fuck her harder, fuck her deeper, make her come. He did his best to fulfill her requests, pounding into her with all the fury of a man who never thought he would get this chance, and suddenly she seized up underneath him, her body shuddering, her muscles clenching around his cock, and her voice screaming out in wordless pleasure.

He groaned, bowed his head against her collarbone, and spilled himself into her. “Kate,” he whispered. “Oh, God, Kate.”

She held him tight in the aftermath, her hands stroking his hair as his hands gripped her and he wept a few hot, painful tears onto her shoulder. Once he was recovered, she reached up and kissed him, deep and warm. “Okay now?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I just… it all got to me for a second.”

She smiled. “I know. It’s okay.”

He rolled onto his back, drawing her with him to drape across his body, and cupped her face with his hand. “Never thought I’d ever be here,” he whispered. “It’s a lot to take in.”

She grinned, leaning down to kiss him. “So are you,” she replied, reaching down to grasp his hardening erection and sitting up to take him inside her again, bracing her hands on his chest and grinning down at him. “Ready to go again?”

“You’re gonna kill me,” he groaned, reaching up to grasp her breasts.

“It’s possible,” she replied, rolling her hips. “But what a way to go.”

 

The ice cream was good; the trip around the Memorial was better. Tim was a perfect gentleman, and Buffy couldn’t remember the last time she’d been out with one of those. He held her hand as they walked and munched on ice cream cones, Sofie ranging out and back again to see what there was to be seen. They sat on the marble steps for a little while, chatting about places they’d been and people they’d known, and Buffy found herself smiling a lot for the first time in a long time.

They had almost made it back to the car when Buffy sighed. “I knew it couldn’t last; I just knew it.”

Tim turned and looked at her, one eyebrow raised. “Come again?”

Buffy shrugged one arm oddly, and a stake appeared in her hand. “Sofie, are you armed?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Stay here with Tim.” She looked up at Tim and gave him a rueful smile. “Duty calls.”

”Don’t you need backup?” he asked, putting one hand on his gun.

She shook her head. “That thing wouldn’t do you any good. Against a vampire, you might as well have a pea shooter. I’ll be right back.” She turned and slipped away, vanishing into the darkness. A moment later, Tim heard her voice, speaking to someone in a conversational tone; he couldn’t quite make out the words, but he could clearly hear the sounds of a scuffle.

Putting his hand on his gun, he started forward, only to find himself caught in an iron grip. He looked down to see Sofie’s hand on his arm, her feet planted steadily on the pavement. Her grip was strong enough that he wasn’t sure he could break it, and her eyes were ancient in her young face. “Stay here,” she said softly. “You can’t help her now.”

A few minutes later, Buffy reappeared, brushing dust off her face and clothing. “Situation handled,” she reported. “Let’s get the heck out of here.”

He took them both home, and walked them to the door. Sofie bolted into the house and pounded up the stairs; Buffy moved a little more slowly and stood on the porch with him for a moment. “I really enjoyed tonight,” she said softly. “Vampires aside. Thank you.”

He smiled. “I did, too. Do you think you’d like to go again?”

She smiled back. “I’d love to. Call me?”

“Definitely.” He leaned down, greatly daring, and pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek, then turned and went back to his car. With a final wave, he drove away, and Buffy went inside the house, her smile still on her face and her cheek tingling where his lips had touched her.


	5. Chaos Theory V: Fluid Dynamics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate reconnects with her family while Buffy and Tim take things to the next level.

“Are you sure you don’t want to call first?”

Kate shook her head at Buffy’s question, folding another pair of jeans and tucking them down into her bag. “No. It’s better if I go in person; that way, nobody thinks I’m a crank caller.”

Buffy shrugged. “You’ve got a point.”

Kate paused in her packing, looking out at the snow on the ground. “Hi, Mom,” she said softly, almost to herself. “I’m not dead. Merry Christmas.”

Buffy laughed slightly. “You gotta admit, it’s not a bad idea, as Christmas presents go.”

Kate shrugged. “The kids will like the toys better.”

“Don’t count on it.” Buffy grinned, stretching out across Kate’s unmade bed. “Have you decided what you’re gonna tell them?”

“I’m still waffling between witness protection and deep undercover, but I’m leaning more toward deep undercover; it’s the kind of thing my dad would understand. He was a cop, you know.”

“Really?” Buffy rolled over, propping her chin on her fists, and studied her friend. “I didn’t know that.”

Kate nodded. “He retired from the force in Indianapolis a year before I… died.” She said the final word with a tiny shake of her head that told Buffy she still hadn’t wrapped her mind around the reality, even four months after her resurrection. Buffy could understand that; it had taken her years and a lot of therapy to come to terms with what had happened.

“Kate,” Buffy offered tentatively, “are you sure you don’t want to talk to somebody about it? I mean, I’m possibly one of the most screwed up people around; I’m certainly not the one you want to keep coming to for advice about this.”

Kate smiled. “No. I really hate shrinks. I’d rather just deal with it on my own. And you’re not as screwed up as you think you are.”

“Mainly because I still talk to my shrink twice a week,” Buffy pointed out. Kate had been surprised – to say the least – when she learned that Buffy talked to a therapist. She never would have taken the Slayer for the type to accept the help. But as Buffy had explained, she’d learned that she couldn’t shoulder the burden by herself any more; she needed someone to assist her before she collapsed under the strain.

Kate shook her head again. “I’m just not comfortable with the idea.” She returned to her packing, folding up the last pair of jeans she was taking and starting on her shirts. “So, have you decided what you’re going to do for the holiday?”

Buffy rolled onto her back, looking up at the ceiling. “I think I’m gonna stay here,” she said finally. “Just enjoy the peace and quiet.”

Kate’s brows drew together slightly. “You don’t want to go to England and spend the holiday with Giles and Sofie?”

“I do,” Buffy admitted, smiling at the thought of Sofie, who had teleported back to Castle Combe three days previously, when school let out for winter break. “But I don’t. I haven’t really had any time to myself, to just kind of hang out and be by myself, in a really long time. So I’m just gonna enjoy that.” She grinned. “I probably won’t get out of my pajamas for a week.”

“Lazy,” Kate accused with a smile.

“Very,” Buffy admitted easily. “So how’s Gibbs feel about you going all the way to Indiana for Christmas and leaving him here by himself?”

Kate blushed slightly and mumbled something. Buffy sat up straight. “Once more?”

“He’s going with me,” Kate admitted.

Buffy stared. “I didn’t realize you guys were that serious.”

Kate shrugged slightly. “Neither did I, really.”

“Are you okay with him going?” When Kate shrugged again, Buffy leaned forward earnestly. “If you’re not, you should tell him.”

“It’s not that. I want him to go, I really do. I want to introduce my family to him and everything. It’s just… I wonder if it’s…” Kate paused and sat down on the edge of the bed, looking down at the sweater in her hands. “It makes me feel like a coward,” she finally admitted. “I feel like I’m too afraid to go and face my family on my own, so I have to take him with me in the hopes that they won’t…”

“What? Be mad? Kate, they’re going to be mad. Once they get over the oh-my-god-you’re-alive part, they’re gonna be _furious_.” She paused suddenly. “You don’t think they’ll get violent, do you?”

“No!” Kate exclaimed, looking up in shock. “No way! My dad never laid a hand on any of us. And my mom only did once.” When Buffy raised an eyebrow, Kate explained with a slight blush. “She popped me in the mouth for swearing. I think I was ten or eleven at the time, and I’d dropped a casserole dish on the kitchen floor. It shattered, of course, and chipped the tile, and I thought I was alone in the house, so I hollered ‘God damn it!’ and the next thing I knew, my mother knocked me sideways.” She grinned. “I’ll never forget it. I stood there with a swollen lip, staring at her in complete shock, because other than the kind of whacks on the butt a toddler gets for reaching for the stove and stuff like that, neither of my parents had ever hit me. And she said, ‘Katie, I’m not worried about the dish; we’ve got more. I’m not even worried about the tile; it can be fixed. But don’t you ever take the Lord’s name in vain again, do you hear me?’” She paused and laughed softly. “I never cursed in front of her again.”

“I bet you didn’t,” Buffy agreed, grinning. “My parents never hit me, either. But then, before the divorce, they barely even noticed me.” She shrugged. “After the divorce, Mom got better, but Dad got worse. Half the time he forgot when he was supposed to come get me, and the other half of the time, he cancelled on me. I think I saw him a total of maybe four times between the time we moved to Sunnydale and the time Sunnydale went cratery. Dawn called him after, to let him know we were okay, and he was in France with yet another secretary.”

Kate made a sympathetic face. “That sucks, Buffy.”

“Yeah, I know.” She forced a smile. “His loss, right?”

Kate wordlessly patted her friend’s leg and returned to her packing. When she was finished, she heaved the suitcase off the bed with some effort, then sighed. “Maybe I shouldn’t take so much stuff.”

Buffy hopped off the bed and picked the bag up easily, heading downstairs with it. “We need to work on your upper body strength,” she commented idly.

“Can you turn me into a Slayer?” Kate asked sarcastically.

“It’s not worth the trade-off,” Buffy called back as she started down the stairs.

With a soft snort, Kate turned back to her room, looking around and peeking into the en suite bath to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything important, like her toothbrush; she had no desire to have to brave a supermarket or discount store of any kind to try and get a new one on the day before Christmas. Satisfied that she was completely packed, she pulled her boots on and double checked her appearance in the mirror. She had chosen a warm, bulky sweater and a pair of lined jeans for the trip, comfortable but warm, and tied her hair back into a ponytail. A dash of lip gloss and eye shadow added some color to her winter-pale face, and she nodded once, satisfied that she looked nice.

Not that it mattered; after an eleven-hour drive, she would probably look just as haggard as she did when coming in off patrol with Buffy at three a.m. That thought sparked another, and she trotted downstairs just as Buffy came back in from the car. “You’re not gonna patrol by yourself while I’m gone, are you?”

“Probably not,” Buffy replied. “Not unless something major goes down. If I do, I’ll call and let you know.”

Kate frowned disapprovingly. “I’d feel better if you’d take off.”

Buffy shrugged. “I might not be able to, Kate. If something happens, you know as well as I do that I’m the only person close enough to take care of it.”

Kate sighed. “I know. I just don’t like leaving you to have to do it by yourself.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve been doing this for a long time now.”

“And I want to make sure you keep doing it longer.” Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of Gibbs’s truck pulling into the driveway. They watched out the living room window as he parked next to Kate’s car and climbed out, grabbing his bag out of the truck bed and slinging it over his shoulder as he headed for the front door.

Kate opened the door before he could ring the bell and grinned up at him. “Hey, soldier.”

“Hey,” he replied, leaning down to kiss her.

Buffy grinned as she watched Kate melt into Gibbs’s embrace. “You two keep that up and you won’t make it to Indiana before next week.”

Kate snuggled into Gibbs’s arms. “That actually sounds like a good plan. Tell you what, Buffy; _you_ go to Indiana, and I’ll stay here and keep Jethro warm.”

“How about you go to Indiana, and I’ll stay here and hibernate in my room until you get back?” Buffy suggested in response. “Get the hell out of here. Go see your family. Merry Christmas.”

Gibbs drew Kate out the door and Buffy stood in the doorway, smiling as she watched Kate unlock the trunk of her car so he could stow his bag, then hand him the keys with another kiss before climbing in on the passenger side. She waved as they pulled out of the driveway, then shut the door and wandered back through the house.

It was so quiet, it was almost creepy, and Buffy went into the living room and turned the stereo on for a little bit of background noise as she moved back to the kitchen to make some lunch. She was just sitting down at the counter with a couple of waffles and a bowl of fruit when the doorbell rang.

It was Tim, smiling down at her and offering a handful of daisies. She took them with a huge smile. “You remembered!”

“I try to remember things you tell me so I can surprise you with them later,” he confessed, stepping across the threshold and dropping a kiss on her lips as he entered the house. He paused, sniffing the air. “It smells like waffles in here.”

“I was just having lunch. Want some?”

“Waffles?”

“Sure. Why not? Breakfast rules are made to be broken.” She preceded him into the kitchen and got a vase down for her daisies, fussing over them for a few minutes before pulling the bowl of waffle batter out of the fridge. “Seriously. Waffle?”

“Sure.” He hung his coat on a peg by the back door and sat down at the counter, snagging one of the waffles she’d already made and munching on it while he watched her move around the counter. “Kate gone?”

Buffy nodded, glancing at the clock. “And Gibbs, about half an hour or so ago. I’m glad he’s going with her,” she added. “She was really nervous.”

Tim nodded. “I would be, too, if I was having to go explain to my family that I was alive again after two and a half years.”

Buffy nodded, pulling a hot waffle out of the waffle iron and putting it on a plate for Tim. She left the iron hot and poured strawberry syrup on her own food. “Speaking of families, when are you going down to Norfolk?”

“Not until tomorrow, and I’m not staying more than one night,” Tim replied. “I love my family, don’t get me wrong, but I really, really don’t want to spend any more time down there than I have to. Especially with my sister. She tends to be… overly sarcastic.”

Buffy nodded. “So what are you gonna do with all your vacation time?”

“Well, for starters, I thought I’d see if you wanted to go down to Williamsburg and see the decorations. It’s really pretty.”

Buffy leaned across the counter and kissed him. “I’d love to.” She took another bite of waffle. “So, what’s everyone else doing for the holiday?”

“Abby’s going to New Orleans to see her family,” Tim replied. “Ducky and his mom are taking it easy this year; she hasn’t been very well, so they’re not doing anything big. Tony’s going to see one of his frat brothers, and I’m not really sure what Ziva’s doing. She hasn’t said much. I don’t think her family is really big on the holidays.”

“She’s not going home for Hanukkah?”

Tim shook his head. “Apparently Hanukkah’s not as big of a holiday as people think; just because it usually happens around the same time as Christmas seems to be a coincidence. Besides, it was like last week or something.”

“Huh. One of my best friends is Jewish and I never knew that.” Buffy cocked her head, considering. “I wonder what their big holidays are.”

“I don’t know,” Tim said thoughtfully. “I should ask her.”

“Yeah. Maybe we could have a party or something.” Buffy finished off her food and stuck the plate in the dishwasher. “Let me go put some warm clothes on.”

“Want some help?” he teased with a grin.

“Only if you don’t really want to go anywhere today,” she replied, her grin matching his own. He put on a thoughtful expression and she, giggling, headed up the stairs to change.

As she pulled on her lined jeans, Buffy considered the teasing flirtation she’d had with Tim downstairs. They’d been dating now for a little over three months, but they hadn’t made love, and strangely, she felt like this relationship was the best one she’d had in her life. Riley had pressured her to have sex with him earlier than she wanted; having sex with Angel had been a monumentally bad idea, as had Parker. Spike… she didn’t even want to think about what things had been like with him. But she was still somewhat surprised that Tim hadn’t even made more than lightly teasing comments like the one today.

Kate said unequivocally that it was because Tim’s parents had raised a decent man who respected women. She made dark references to Tony’s track record with women, references which Abby had agreed with before pointing out that Tony had changed recently. Abby had told them both the story of Jeanne Benoit and had confessed that, even though the whole thing had been just an assignment, the dark-haired scientist held the unshakeable belief that Tony had really fallen, and fallen hard, for Jeanne.

Kate had scoffed at the idea that Tony could settle down with anyone, but had looked thoughtful all the same. Buffy herself, having spent time with him, privately felt that the frat-boy lech persona he wore around Kate was just that: a persona, and one he put on for Kate’s benefit. That was who Kate expected him to be, therefore that would be who he was for Kate. Buffy thought that there was more there, but it wasn’t her concern. Her concern was the sweet, slightly geeky man who opened doors for her and called his grandmother “Nana” and took Sofie with them to have ice cream.

Buffy’s lips curved in a slight, secret smile. She had the house all to herself for two full weeks; maybe now was the time to go ahead and see if Tim was ready to take that next step. Then she brushed her teeth, dusted a bit of makeup on, and trotted downstairs. “Ready when you are!” she sang out from the foyer.

“Buffster!”

Buffy jumped and spun, her body immediately going into panic mode. It took several deep breaths for her to calm down again, but when she did, she straightened up and stepped forward, wrapping a hug around her long-missed friend who stood in the doorway. “Xander! What are you doing here?”

“What, I can’t come see my favorite Chosen One for the holidays?”

“Not when you supposedly have a wife to be having the holidays with,” Buffy replied with a knowing glance at Tim, who had just begun to look a little on the jealous side.

Xander snorted. “Not any more. She gave me divorce papers for Christmas yesterday. Says she’s bored.”

“Oh, poor Xander!” Buffy stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him again, hugging him tightly. When she stepped back, she reached for Tim’s hand. “I guess this is a bad time to introduce you to my new boyfriend, huh?” she said sympathetically. “Tim, this is Xander Harris – I’ve told you about him. Xander, this is Tim McGee.”

The two men sized each other up immediately, and Buffy rolled her eyes at the sight of the two of them trying to out-alpha each other. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Tim said.

“Yeah, I haven’t heard anything about you,” Xander replied.

Buffy’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not fair. If you ever answered your phone or returned calls I’d have told you about him a hundred times.” She pointed a finger at Xander. “Don’t start.”

Xander blinked. “Don’t start what?”

“Don’t start your jealous anti-boyfriend stuff. I’ve had it. You hated Angel, you hated Riley, you hated Spike, and if all you’re gonna do is be a jerk to Tim, you can march yourself right back to Toronto. If you’re gonna stay here, you’re gonna be nice.”

“I hated Angel and Spike because they were vampires,” Xander pointed out reasonably.

Tim’s eyebrows rose up toward his hairline. “You didn’t tell me they were vampires.”

Buffy winced. “I was getting there. Eventually.” She waited for the explosion, the accusations that would undoubtedly come now that her omission was exposed. Instead, she opened her eyes wide when he laughed softly and wrapped his arms around her shoulders from behind.

“Don’t worry about it,” he whispered into her ear. “Remind me to tell you about the online girlfriend I had in college that turned out to be a fifty-year-old guy from St. Louis. After I swear you to secrecy.”

She bit down hard on her lip to keep from laughing then turned in his arms and kissed him. “Excuse us,” she said to Xander, tugging Tim back into the kitchen. “Do you mind if Xander comes with us to Williamsburg?” she asked, her voice soft so that it wouldn’t carry.

“Well,” he said reasonably, “it will sort of interfere with some of the plans I had, like doing inappropriate things to you in the car on the way, but I suppose he can come along.”

She tiptoed and kissed him warmly. “Tell you what,” she said, her voice low and full of promise, “if you can spend the day overlooking the fact that Xander never got over me turning him down in high school, I’ll let you do all the inappropriate things you want in my bed tonight when we get back.”

Tim swallowed. “S-seriously?”

She grinned wickedly. “Seriously. Call it your early Christmas present.”

“With incentive like that, I can overlook just about anything.” He kissed her again, then laid a hand on her jaw. “Are you sure? I don’t want you to feel rushed.”

Buffy laughed softly. “We’ve been dating for three months, Tim,” she pointed out. “If anything, I’d say it’s about time. Wouldn’t you?”

“Definitely.” He kissed her once again, just long enough to leave her breathless, and then released her, stepping back out into the living room. “So, Xander, we were gonna go to Williamsburg for the day; you’re welcome to join us.”

 

They were halfway through Maryland before Gibbs realized the silence wasn’t just a companionable quiet; Kate was staring out the window with slow, silent tears running down her face, and her hands were trembling, which was why she had clenched them together in her lap. He blinked. “What’s wrong?”

She didn’t say anything for a couple of miles and he didn’t press; he just waited. Finally she spoke. “What if they hate me?”

“For being gone?”

She nodded. “For – Jethro, they’re gonna think I just left them behind and I didn’t care. They’re gonna think I just went off and did whatever and made them _think_ I was dead. Because I can’t tell them that I really was. Mom and Daddy… this supernatural stuff… I mean, they’re devout Catholics, even more so than me. Daddy almost went into the seminary before he met Mom. If I told them the truth, they’d think I was crazy, and if I proved it to them, they’d think it was Satanic.”

He reached out and rubbed her shoulder gently. “That’s part of the reason why I asked you if you wanted me to come along,” he said. “Because I can back you up and tell them you didn’t have a choice in the matter.”

She snorted softly. “And when you do, Mom’s gonna curse you out in about three languages.” He laughed, and so did she, but then she said, “I’m serious. Mom’s got a hell of a temper.”

“Never would have guessed it from the temper her daughter has,” he replied, grinning. “What languages should I expect?”

Kate grinned, settling back in her seat. “Well, Daddy’s Scottish, you know, so he taught her to speak Gaelic. And she was born in Budapest, so there will definitely be some Hungarian. Possibly Russian, because she speaks Russian as well. English, of course. And possibly Spanish; my brother Thomas taught her to swear in Spanish when we were in high school.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What does your mother do for a living?” he asked curiously.

Kate grinned. “She teaches pre-kindergarten.” Then she paused, and her face fell slightly. “Well, she may be retired now. She was thinking about it the last time I talked to her.”

“We’ll ask when we get there.” He patted her leg reassuringly. “Kate, no matter what happens, you know your family loves you. I’m sure they’ll just be glad you’re alive.”

“I hope you’re right. My mom can hold a mean grudge when she wants to.”

“Think there’ll be a big crew at the house?”

Kate nodded. “Probably. Mom loves doing the matriarch thing. All my brothers and my sister come, and they bring their kids, and my aunts and uncles usually come with the cousins and their kids. We’ll probably have to try and find a hotel room; I doubt there’ll be space for us at the house.”

Gibbs privately thought Kate would be lucky if her mother let her out of her sight long enough to go to a hotel – most likely, one of her brothers would be booted out – but he said nothing. She was too nervous to be reassured by someone who had never actually met her family except for a few brief minutes over her grave.

A macabre thought crossed his mind: he wondered if Kate’s body still lay in her coffin or if it had simply been restored when she crossed back over through Willow’s rift. It was a question he wasn’t sure he wanted an answer to, but curiosity would probably eat at him until he asked someone. He made a mental note to be sure Kate was nowhere around when he asked.

He shook off the negative thoughts and concentrated on driving and conversation – something he didn’t do often – to keep Kate’s mind off their destination. When they stopped for lunch in Charleston, she did something surprising: she stopped him in the parking lot and laid a very hot, very wet kiss on his lips. He blinked. “What was that for?”

“I have to have a reason to kiss you?” she asked coyly.

“Like that, in public? Yes.” He grinned.

She smiled, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her forehead on his chest. “Thank you,” she said softly.

“What for?”

“For doing this for me. For trying so hard to keep me from worrying. For being here with me.” She looked up at him, swallowed, and whispered, “I love you.”

He was stunned. It was the first time either of them had spoken those words aloud, though they had both whispered them in the dark more than once, during or just after sex. But this, in the daylight, out in the open like this, this was different, and they both knew it. He leaned down and captured her lips again, his mouth making love to hers in all the ways he knew how. When he released her, she was panting and her pupils were dilated. He grinned, leaning down to place his lips against her ear. “I love you, too.” Then he took her hand and led her, still looking a bit dazed, into the restaurant.

It was packed with holiday travelers – no surprise since it was Christmas Eve – but they were still seated reasonably quickly, and their food delivered fairly quickly as well. When they got back in the car, Kate taking over the driving, she commented on the speed of the restaurant. “I can’t believe we got in and out of there so fast.”

“I was pretty impressed myself,” Gibbs agreed. Conversation stayed light until they had been on the interstate for some time, and then he suddenly reached over and took her hand, running his thumb across her fingers. “Kate… there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Okay,” she said, glancing over at him and wondering why he looked so serious.

“There’s…” he paused, searching for words, and suddenly she felt her stomach clench in fear.

 _There’s what?_ she thought in panic. _There’s someone else? How could there be someone else? He just told me he loves me!_ “Just spit it out, Gibbs,” she said, her voice shaking slightly. “Whatever it is, I can take it.” But she pulled her hand away from his, wrapping it around the steering wheel and clenching so tightly that her knuckles went white. She couldn’t believe it was over already – and he was springing this on her _on the way to her parents’ house_.

There was no way she could take him to her parents’ with him breaking up with her. She wouldn’t make it through the evening, much less the week and a half she had planned on staying if her mother didn’t throw her out in fury. Not with him there, not having to pretend to be nice to him. She started looking for an exit, preparing to turn the car around and head back to Washington.

He, seeking words, didn’t realize her upset until she pulled her hand away from his. He watched her face go pale and her eyes begin to dart, and he narrowed his eyes. “Kate?”

“Just say it, okay?” she said, and silently cursed herself as tears began to form and fall from her eyes. “You don’t have to let me down easy. Just spit it out, okay?”

“Let you down – Kate, pull over at this rest area.” He waited as she maneuvered through traffic and pulled onto the off-ramp, watching her closely as she found a parking spot far away from any other cars and shifted the car into park. Her hands fell into her lap and she refused to meet his eyes, waiting for him to speak and crush her world.

He reached out to try and take her hand, but she pulled away from him. “Would you just say it?” she demanded, fighting hysteria. She couldn’t take this, really, not today.

“Kate, I don’t know what’s going on in your head right now, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m about to tell you,” he said gently. “It’s about my first wife.”

She looked up at him, desperate hope rising in her chest. “You… you aren’t breaking up with me?”

He blinked. “What? No! Kate, why would I break up with you on the way to your parents’ house for Christmas?”

“I don’t know!” she exclaimed, and her silent tears became uncontrollable sobs as the tension broke the dam inside her that had been holding back her emotions.

Sighing, Gibbs reached over and turned the car off, then got out and came around to her side. He helped her out of the car and drew her over to the picnic area, brushing snow off a bench and sitting down before drawing her into his lap and wrapping his arms around her. He waited until she had finished crying before reaching up to wipe the tears from her face with his thumb. “Better?”

She nodded. “A little.” She wiped at her red eyes. “Sorry for freaking out.”

He kissed her gently. “You’re under a lot of stress,” he said softly. “No shame in breaking down.”

She laid her head on his shoulder and breathed deeply through the last of the shudders, then sat up again, sniffling slightly. “What did you want to tell me?”

He sighed. “Like I said, it’s about my first wife – Shannon.”

She blinked. “I thought your first wife was –”

“I know.” He cut her off. “But she wasn’t. I don’t talk about Shannon. Or Kelly.” He took a deep breath. “Shannon was my first wife. Kelly was my daughter. They were both killed while I was in Iraq during Desert Storm.” Not meeting her incredulous gaze, he told her the whole ugly story. By the time he was done, she was crying again, but this time it was because her heart was breaking over the pain she could see in his face.

He wrapped his arms tightly around her and rested his chin on her head. “I wanted to tell you,” he said softly, “because I want… I don’t want there to be any secrets between us. No lies, no omissions. It’s no way to build a relationship.”

She nodded, wiping at her eyes. “Thank you for trusting me,” she said softly.

He pressed a kiss to her head. “I have always trusted you,” he murmured into her hair. “I love you, Kate.”

She raised her head then and kissed him, warm and sweet and soft, and then she shivered as the snow began to fall again. He smiled, rubbing her back. “Let’s head back to the car.” He paused as she stood. “Mind if I drive a while?”

“Not at all,” she said, heading for the passenger side of the car.

The next few hours of their trip were quiet and introspective, but spent with their hands wrapped together, resting on the lid of the cubbyhole between the seats. They stopped for dinner outside Louisville and Kate paused somewhere in the middle of the meal to ponder the fact that they were sitting in a back corner of the restaurant, their hands clasped across the table, staring at one another in that fawn-eyed way that is usually reserved for teenage couples on their way to the prom. She smiled at the thought.

He raised an eyebrow. “Something funny?”

“Us,” she replied, grinning slightly. “I was just thinking that we’re sitting here doing that moony-faced teenager thing.” She squeezed his hand in illustration.

He grinned. “Looks like it.”

She reflected that he’d smiled more over the last few months than he had in the whole time she’d known him, and decided she liked it, and she wanted to make him smile more. She speared a piece of broccoli and offered it to him. “You know you wanna.”

“Not wrong about that,” he agreed, leaning forward as if to take it. “Except for one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I hate broccoli.” He grinned, snagged a piece of her fried okra instead, and popped it into his mouth, sitting back with a smug expression. She made a face at him and ate the broccoli herself.

They turned onto the street where her parents lived a little before nine o’clock, and as Kate had predicted, the huge Federal-style house was ablaze with lights, the front yard and driveway full of cars. “Just park anywhere,” she advised Gibbs, and took a deep breath as he turned the car off. “Well, I guess this is it.”

He reached over and took hold of her chin, pulling her gaze away from the house and turning her to face him. “I’m right here with you,” he said softly, “and I’m staying with you. Okay?”

She nodded. “Okay.”

He leaned over and kissed her warmly. When they broke apart, she gave him a dreamy smile. “I can do this,” she said softly.

“You can do this.” He nodded. They climbed out of the car together, and he put his palm against the small of her back as they approached the front door.

 

By the time they made it back from Williamsburg, Xander had discovered that, much to his dismay, he actually liked Buffy’s new boyfriend. Tim McGee was computer-geeky in the extreme, and actually reminded him a lot of Jonathan Levinson in many ways, but there was a core of steel in Tim that Xander sensed and respected. He also noted that Tim went out of his way to treat Buffy better than any of her other boyfriends had. He opened doors for her, walked hand-in-hand with her, listened when she talked, and laughed at her jokes.

For her part, Xander saw a sparkle in Buffy’s eyes that he hadn’t seen in years, and he knew that Tim McGee was at least partly responsible for its presence. She was happy with him, happy to have doors opened and to walk hand in hand, happy to be teased about her height and to be plied with cocoa one moment or have snow dumped down her back another. Xander wanted to hate the guy on principle, he really did… but he couldn’t.

When they arrived back at Buffy’s house, she pointed him to the guest room, sent Tim into the living room to build a fire in the fireplace, and went upstairs for a warm shower and dry clothing. Xander availed himself of the same, and by the time he got back down to the living room, Buffy and Tim were curled up on the couch together with more cocoa. Buffy’s head was on Tim’s shoulder and his arm was around her waist. Xander stood in the hallway and watched them, feeling his heart clench in pain as the torch he’d been carrying for Buffy since tenth grade sputtered in his chest, but he had to admit that Tim was a decent guy who made Buffy happy. And God knew Buffy deserved to finally get happy.

There was a third steaming mug on the coffee table waiting for Xander, and he picked it up when he walked into the room. “Thanks,” he said to both of them, sitting down in the overstuffed wingback chair, and Buffy smiled.

“You’re welcome,” she said softly. Then she cocked her head at him. “How come you didn’t go to England for Christmas?”

He shrugged. “Last minute flights to Washington were cheaper than London.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Willow would have teleported you.”

He shrugged again, and Buffy sat up straight, studying him. “Spill, Xand.”

Xander sat back, studying his cocoa, and finally spoke again. “I didn’t go to England because Christmas was so miserable there last year, and I couldn’t do that again.” He sighed. “England isn’t home any more since Dawn died.”

Buffy swallowed hard, feeling the tears prickle behind her eyelids. “Do you know,” she said in a wavering voice, “you’re the only one besides me who admits Dawn’s dead?”

He looked up at her in surprise. “You’re kidding.”

She shook her head. “No. Giles only talks about it if he has to, and he says she ‘reverted’ or something stupid like that. And Willow doesn’t talk about it at all. Not,” she added in the spirit of fairness, “that I’ve had much to say to her since it happened.”

“Yeah, Giles told me you still aren’t speaking to her.”

“Well, why should I?” Buffy asked reasonably. “I mean, let’s consider everything that’s happened between us. When I came back from L.A., all Willow could do was bitch that I hadn’t been there to support her with dating Oz. Then she gets all witchy in college and does a bunch of bad stuff. Then I die, and she cons the three of you into bringing me back without even _asking_ me first. When I come back, I find out that not only has she spent all the life insurance money – and Xander, there was a _lot_ of life insurance – not only is that all spent, but now she and Tara are living in the house, and expecting me to feed them, pay for the house, pay all the bills, clean up after them, and neither one of them even _offered_ to pay rent. And then there was all that stuff that went down the last year we were there – don’t even get me started, because I’ve found the words finally, and believe me, you don’t want to hear them. And on top of all that, she finds that spell, and I told her not to do it – and she did it anyway, and now Dawn is _dead_. And not once, Xander, not once has she _ever_ said she was sorry. About _anything_. You tell me why I should talk to her.”

Xander studied her for a long moment. Her face was flushed with anger, and Tim was rubbing her back in soothing motions. He drew a deep breath. “Buff…” he paused, then cocked his head. “Have I ever said I’m sorry?”

She nodded. “When we had that talk, the year before Dawn died. Remember?”

“Oh, yeah. The Drunk Confessions.”

Buffy laughed softly, turning to Tim. “Right after we moved to England, Xander and I went out to a pub and got completely hammered. We were stumbling back to the castle and I fell over in the churchyard, so Xander flops down on the grass next to me and we laid there forever, just staring at the stars.” She leaned against him. “And we talked.” She smiled across the room at her friend. “About everything.” She sighed softly, her smile fading a little. “I’ve never been able to talk to Willow like that.”

“I love Willow,” Xander said carefully, “but she does have some trouble admitting when she’s wrong.”

Buffy laughed softly. “You could say that.”

Xander finished his cocoa and took the mug into the kitchen to rinse it out. On his way back to the living room, he paused in the hallway again, his heart clenching once more at the sight of Tim leaning down to kiss Buffy warmly. He took a deep breath, waited until they had separated, and read their intent on their faces. He stepped into the doorway and faked a huge yawn. “I’m bushed,” he said. “Think I’m gonna turn in.”

Buffy nodded. “See you in the morning.”

Tim waved. “I may be gone by the time you get up; sleep well.”

“You, too, man,” Xander said, giving a slight wave and heading up the stairs.

Buffy looked up into Tim’s eyes and smiled. “So…” she said, reaching up to touch his face with gentle fingers. “You ready for your Christmas present?”

Tim leaned down to capture her lips in a searing kiss, his tongue sliding into her mouth and dancing with hers. When he drew back, he smiled back. “Very.”

She stood, taking his hand, and drew him after her up the stairs.

 

Standing on the doorstep, Kate took a deep breath and looked up at Gibbs nervously. “Everything’s gonna be okay, right?”

“You can do this,” he said softly, squeezing her shoulders.

“I can do this. Right.” Kate breathed in deeply one last time, then reached up and rang the doorbell. They waited for a moment before they heard footsteps, and then the door opened, and Kate found herself looking up into the deep brown eyes of her brother Sean.

He stared down at her in shock, seemingly unable to find words. She gave him a tentative smile. “Merry Christmas?”

At the sound of her voice, his face crumbled, and tears began to roll down his face as he reached down and swooped her up into his arms, dragging her up into a bear hug. “Oh, my God,” he whispered. “Oh, my God. Katie. Oh, my God.”

She hugged him as tightly as she could. “Sean, I missed you so much,” she said softly. “I missed you so much.”

Just then, a woman’s voice echoed out of the bowels of the house. “Sean? Who’s at the door?”

“Damn Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Sean called back, grinning at his sister, who he was still holding up off the floor.

Kate whacked him on the shoulder and started to wiggle. “Put me down, Gigantosaurus Rex.”

“No way,” he responded, holding onto her more tightly. “My sister just came back from the dead. I’m never putting you down again.” He pulled her into another hug, and she wrapped her arms around his neck again, squeezing hard. At last, though, he did set her on her feet, and Kate turned, reaching for Gibbs’s hand.

“Sean, this is Jethro. Jethro, this is my oldest brother, Sean.”

Sean put his hand out. “I recognize you,” he said. “You were at the… the funeral.”

Gibbs nodded. “Used to be Kate’s boss,” he explained.

“Are you responsible for bringing her back?” Sean asked, and Kate was struck by sudden inspiration.

“Yes,” she said before Gibbs could disclaim responsibility. “He – well, it’s a long story. Maybe I should just tell it once.”

Sean nodded, reaching out to shut the door. “Come on; everybody’s in the living room. We were just about to do presents.”

Kate grinned, reaching for the door handle. “Wait; I brought presents.”

Sean stared at her. “Girl, have you lost your mind? You thought you needed to bring presents? You didn’t think you being alive would be present enough?” He pulled her hand away from the door. “We can do yours tomorrow; come on.” He grinned suddenly. “Nobody’s gonna want to do presents after they see you, anyway.” He started down the hall, dragging her along behind, and she followed cheerfully, gesturing at Gibbs to come along as well.

They stopped just outside the door of the living room, and Sean put up one hand, telling Kate to stay where she was. “Sorry that took so long, guys,” he said. “Santa brought one of our presents early, because it had to come in at the door.”

There was a clamor of childish voices, all wanting to see what Santa had brought that would have to come in at the door. Sean stepped to one side, reached out, and grabbed Kate. He pulled her into the doorway and gave her a gentle push into the living room, where a silence descended that was so thick Gibbs imagined he could feel it wrapping around his head.

Kate swallowed hard, her eyes tracking around the room. On her left sat her other brothers, James and Thomas, their identical faces wearing identical expressions of shock. Her sister Mary was to her right, her eyes bugged out and her mouth fallen open. But in front of her, in their big easy chairs with grandchildren on their laps, sat her mother and father.

Her father wasn’t looking well, she noted with a clinical eye; he’d lost a lot of weight and had dark circles under his eyes. Was he sick? Her mother was looking as healthy as ever, though she was understandably pale and shocked-looking.

Between herself and her parents were a number of aunts and uncles and a small mob of assorted cousins, and everyone was staring in shock, even the little ones. Kate swallowed hard against the sudden terror and spoke into the silence. “Merry Christmas,” she said softly.

That broke the paralysis – her mother pushed the child in her lap out into the floor and stood. “Katie!” she breathed, and fairly flew across the room to wrap her arms around her long-lost daughter. “It’s a miracle, it’s a Christmas miracle! Jesus brought you home to me!”

Kate wrapped her arms around her mother, bending down to rest her head on her mother’s shoulder. “Hi, Mommy,” she said softly, holding her mother tight. A moment later, she felt her father’s arms wrap around both of them and she freed one arm to wrap around him. “Hi, Daddy.”

“Katie,” he whispered. “Oh, God, Katie, we’ve missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too, Daddy,” she said softly. “I’m so glad to be home.”

After the initial furor died down, Kate was able to introduce Gibbs, and space was made for them to sit on the big couch, close enough to Kate’s mother for them to hold hands across the empty space. “Now, Katie, honey,” Lena Todd said in her slightly-accented voice, “tell us where you’ve been.”

Kate opened her mouth and, for the first time in her life, told her parents a bald-faced lie. “They sent me undercover in Eastern Europe,” she said. “I can’t really go into a lot of details, because it’s still highly classified, but I spent most of my time between Budapest and Prague.”

“Ha!” Lena exclaimed, turning to her husband. “You see, Colum, I _told_ you teaching her Hungarian was a good idea!” She scoffed at him. “And you said she’d never need it living in the States!”

Kate rolled her eyes, smiling. “Yes, mother,” she said in Hungarian. “It was an excellent idea, and I thank you for your foresight.”

“Undercover, eh?” Colum Todd inquired, studying his daughter carefully. “Can you say what you were investigating?”

Kate glanced at Gibbs, who shrugged slightly. Kate bit her lip and then finally said, “Al Qaeda.”

The room was suddenly full of murmurs, sounds of consternation and wonder. Colum’s eyes grew wide. “Really? Al Qaeda?” His face suddenly creased into a huge, proud grin. “That’s my girl!” He launched himself out of his chair and Kate found herself wrapped in a bear hug again, which she was only released from when she begged for oxygen. Then her father turned to Gibbs. “Are you the one who made her go?”

“No, Daddy, Jethro didn’t make me go,” Kate intervened. “My orders came from the director.” She smiled slightly, reaching with her other hand to squeeze Gibbs’s hand. “He didn’t know anything about it until a few months ago, when my cover got blown and I had to send up a flare.”

“When did you get back to Washington?” Sean asked.

“Not long ago,” Kate hedged. “I went from Bucharest to Paris until it was safe to come home.”

“Wow,” Mary’s sarcastic voice cut across the room. “Sounds like you had a real adventure while we all sat around thinking you were dead.”

 

When the door closed behind them, Tim’s hands came immediately to cup Buffy’s face. “Are you sure?” he asked her one last time. “Because I’m not in a hurry.”

She smiled up at him. “I’m sure.” Then she tiptoed, kissing him warmly while her hands went to work at his belt, unbuckling the stiff leather and popping the button of his jeans before she began to pull at the tail of his tee shirt. He ran a hand through her hair, then stepped back and pulled his shirt off, just a little self-consciously.

Buffy smiled, running her hands across his chest, and then leaned forward and kissed between his pectorals. “Come on, Tim,” she said softly. “Show me what you got.”

With a soft growl, he lifted her by the waist and tossed her gently onto the bed, loving the sound of her laughter. He reached down and slid his hands under the hem of her shirt, pushing it up over her head and tossing it away, and grinning. “No bra? Buffy, I’m shocked.”

She smirked up at him. “Wait till you see what else I’m not wearing.”

With a groan, he reached for the waistband of her lounging pants. He curled his hands around the elastic, then leaned down to kiss her breathless. When he released her, he pulled the flannel fabric down her legs, tossing it into a corner. She lay before him, gloriously naked, and he groaned softly, leaning over her and proceeding to worship her with his hands and his mouth.

 

Kate let go of her mother, her hands coming together to twist around each other in her lap. “I didn’t have a choice,” she said softly. “It was too dangerous. For me and for all of you.”

“Sure you didn’t,” Mary snapped. “You couldn’t have called or sent a postcard or anything, I’m so sure.”

“I couldn’t!” Kate exclaimed. “You don’t know how much I wanted to, Mary! You have no idea what I went through, knowing how much it would hurt you all but not having a _choice_. People would have _died_ , Mary!”

Mary scoffed. “Whatever. I’m sure it’s just fine with everyone else, so you can feel free to ignore me.” She stood up. “If you’ll all excuse me, I don’t think I can take any more of sitting here listening to Miss Perfect talk about her perfect job and her perfect undercover assignment and all the other perfect crap she has going on. I’m going to bed.”

“Mary Jane Roosevelt Todd, you get back in here right this instant!” her mother exclaimed, but the only answer they received was the sound of Mary’s footsteps stomping up the stairs, and the distant slamming of a door.

Kate closed her eyes briefly, her face a mask of pain, and then she stood as well. “I shouldn’t have come,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.” She turned to her parents. “I’m sorry I hurt you; please believe I never wanted to.” She turned toward the door, fighting back her tears, but her father’s deep voice stopped her flight.

“Caitlin Anne Roosevelt Todd,” he said gently, and a soft titter that crossed the room this time told Gibbs that the ‘Roosevelt’ was apparently some kind of family joke. “Sit yourself down on that couch right this minute and don’t you get up again until I tell you to.”

“Yes, sir,” Kate replied, sitting back down again. Her eyes stayed glued to her shoes, and heavy tears ran down her cheeks. Gibbs reached out and took her hand, squeezing it warmly. _I’m here_ , he thought hard at her, willing her to get his message. _I’m here, and everything’s gonna be okay_.

She glanced up at him briefly and squeezed back before turning her eyes to her parents again. Her father was watching them with shrewd eyes, but he said nothing. He left that to her mother, who leaned forward and pinned Kate with her dark eyes. “Don’t you ever, ever apologize for coming home to me, do you understand?” Lena said firmly. “I don’t care where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing. I care that you’re here, and you’re alive and well and happy, and I have my daughter back. That’s what I care about. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kate whispered.

“Good girl.” Lena nodded, sitting back. “I’ll deal with your sister in the morning.”

 

By the time Tim finally entered her body, Buffy was so blissed out that all she could do was cry out and clutch at his shoulders. Tim grinned triumphantly at her reaction and rolled them so that she was on top, groaning softly when she sat up and clenched her inner muscles tightly around his shaft. “Oh, God, Buffy.”

“Tim,” she whispered. “God, you feel so good.” She began to slowly move her hips, seeking and finally finding a rhythm that was good for both of them. His head fell back against the bed, his hands sliding up her body to cup her breasts.

“Jesus. Yeah, just like that,” he murmured. “Just like that, baby.”

She tossed her hair back, grinning down at him, and picked up her pace, her thighs flexing as she rose and fell above him, and he started mentally reciting the periodic table of elements to keep control of himself and not spill inside her like an eager schoolboy. As her moans grew higher pitched, her hips began to stutter, and he knew she was close. He drew one hand down her body, trailing his fingers down to the place where they were joined and slipping his thumb between her folds to caress her clit.

She cried out, her body jerking as she came, and he gritted his teeth through her pleasure, waiting until she sagged onto him before rolling her onto her back and pounding furiously inside her. She cried out again as her pleasure began to build back up, and he made her come again before finally letting go.

They lay together for a very long few moments, catching their breath, and then Tim rolled off her to deal with the condom. She pulled the covers back and slipped between the sheets, holding out a hand to him, and he came to her, smiling. He slid into bed with her and she rolled over, snuggling against him spoon-fashion. His arms came to rest around her waist, and he pressed a gentle kiss against her shoulder. “Thank you,” he whispered.

She blinked, then smiled over her shoulder at him. “Thank _you_ ,” she replied softly. He kissed her lips, then angle awkward but the contact still satisfying, and they settled down together to sleep.

 

It was after two a.m. before Kate’s parents finally let them go to bed; Kate said something about getting a hotel room and Lena Todd scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous; you’ll sleep in your own bedroom, of course.” She looked Kate in the eyes. “You didn’t think we’d turned it into a game room or something, did you?”

Kate shrugged diffidently. “I didn’t know,” she said softly.

“Well, we didn’t. It’s just like you left it the last time you were here. Now go get some sleep.”

Kate nodded. “Let me go get my bag.” She headed out the front door, pulling on her coat as she went, and Gibbs started to follow her but was stopped by Colum Todd’s very large hand on his shoulder.

Kate’s father studied Gibbs for a long moment, then made a soft noise in the back of his throat. “So it’s like that with you and my daughter, is it?”

Gibbs didn’t even try to pretend he didn’t know what the other man was getting at. He nodded. “Yes,” he said simply. “I love her.”

Colum studied him for a long moment, then nodded. “Believe you do,” he said finally. “Don’t suppose I need to tell you what her brothers and I’ll do to you if you hurt her.”

Gibbs laughed softly. “No, sir.”

Colum put his hand out. “Colum.”

Jethro took it and shook firmly. “Jethro.”

Colum nodded once, then turned and headed for the stairs. Gibbs pulled his own coat on and went to help Kate with their bags and packages. True to Sean’s word, presents had been forgotten in the excitement surrounding Kate’s arrival, so they would be opened in the morning. Kate wanted her presents to be under the tree with everyone else’s when the time came.

Once the packages were placed to Kate’s satisfaction, she led Gibbs upstairs to her bedroom on the third floor. “I warn you,” she said softly, her hand on the doorknob, “it’s a little… girlie.”

“A little?” he repeated incredulously, staring around at the copious amounts of yellow and ruffles and lace. “My God, how did you ever wind up being a cop?”

Kate grinned. “This was my mother’s doing. I hated it.” She dragged her suitcase over in front of the closet door and then turned the thumb lock on the bedroom door. “Just to prevent unpleasantness in the morning,” she said softly, moving into his arms.

He leaned down to kiss her gently. “So, was it as bad as you expected?”

“Much better, actually. Except for Mary.” She made a face. “You have to excuse her. She has issues, with a capital I.”

“I noticed.”

She laughed softly. “She’s eleven years older than I am, and she resented me a lot as a kid, because she’d gotten used to being the only girl, so when I came along she decided that meant she wasn’t special any more.”

Gibbs rolled his eyes. “One of the many reasons I’m glad I’m an only child.”

Kate laughed softly, then ran her hands down the front of his shirt. “I don’t want to talk about my sister any more,” she said suddenly.

“Neither do I,” he replied, leaning down to kiss her again, his hands pulling at her sweater. “I want to talk about what you have on under this sweater.”

“A shirt,” Kate replied, grinning impishly.

“Not for long.”

He made love to her there in her childhood bed, slow and sweet and thorough, wringing every last sigh and moan and whimper he could out of her before finally bowing his head over her shoulder and spilling inside her. Then they curled up together, pulling comforter and quilts up over them to make a warm cocoon, and they fell asleep wrapped in each other’s arms.


	6. Chaos Theory VI: Nonlinear Systems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s just something about Christmas that brings out the homicidal maniac in all of us.

By the time Xander made it downstairs the next morning, Tim was gone, and Buffy was curled up on the couch under a blanket, dozing lightly with a movie on the television screen. He could smell coffee from the kitchen, so he helped himself to a cup before making his way into the living room to sit down on the other end of the couch and prop his feet up on the coffee table. “I like him,” he said finally. “He seems like a decent guy.”

“He is,” Buffy replied sleepily, stretching out and resting her feet in Xander’s lap. “He’s really sweet, and he’s understanding about the whole Slayer gig. He’s a cop, you know, so he gets it.” Then she smiled slightly. “And he’s great with Sofie. You should see the two of them together. She absolutely adores him.”

Xander raised an eyebrow but wisely said nothing; Giles had mentioned in the past how Buffy seemed to have taken Sofie on as a substitute for Dawn, and Xander could really see it. He wasn’t sure it was good for either of them, but it wasn’t his place to comment. “How long have you guys been going out now?”

“Three months.”

“He treats you good?”

“The best.” She smiled. “Kate says he’s always been that way – just really nice and gentlemanly.”

Xander nodded, sipping his coffee and staring at the movie on the screen. “What the hell movie is this?”

“I have no idea,” Buffy replied, grinning. “Some art house thing Kate’s been going on about. I don’t really get it.” She cocked her head at him, her smile slowly fading away. “So what happened? With Nicolette?”

Xander sighed, dropping his head back against the couch cushions. “I gotta be honest with you, Buff… I really don’t know. We were going along and everything was just fine, or at least I thought it was, and then all of a sudden she started being gone all the time. She wouldn’t answer her cell phone when I called, and when she called back, she’d say she was out with her girlfriends or whatever. That went on for about two months. And then all of a sudden I came home from work the other day and she’d packed my bags for me, and handed me divorce papers.”

“Did she say anything?”

Xander shook his head. “That’s the thing. We never fought, we never had problems. Everything was going along really well. I mean, Jesus, we’d only been married what, eight months? We were practically still honeymooning.”

“What was her reason, in the papers?”

He snorted softly. “Irreconcilable differences. I read that and looked at her like she was out of her mind, and I said, ‘What differences?’” He rubbed at his forehead. “Apparently the differences were that she wanted to sleep around and I wanted her to be faithful. She’s pregnant by some guy that lives in our building. Well, her building. I don’t live there any more.”

“Oh, Xander,” Buffy said softly.

He shrugged. “Could have been worse, I guess. She could have tried to pass it off as being mine.”

“I guess that’s true.” She studied him for a long moment. “So, have you decided where you’re gonna go?”

He turned to her with a slight smirk on his face. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

 

The raised voices of children woke Gibbs the next morning, and he leaned over in the obscenely yellow bed to nuzzle against the back of Kate’s neck. “Merry Christmas,” he whispered as she groaned herself slowly awake.

She rolled over in his arms and snuggled into his chest, murmuring a return greeting and immediately falling asleep again. He chuckled and ran a hand down her body, cupping her rump and raising her leg over his. “Wake up,” he murmured.

“Mmm-mmm,” she refused, squeezing her eyes shut a little tighter. “Don’t wanna.”

He rolled his hips, bringing his morning erection into contact with her center. “Sure about that?”

She raised her leg up higher, wrapping her arms around his neck, and reached up to kiss under his jaw without opening her eyes. “You can do that while I’m asleep,” she pointed out.

“Well, I can,” he agreed in a reasonable tone. “But it’s a lot more entertaining when you’re awake.” He rolled her onto her back and pushed into her slowly. She raised both legs up to wrap them around his waist, her head falling back in pleasure.

“Yes,” she whispered. “God, yes.”

He began to move exquisitely slowly, kissing her softly and whispering endearments into her ears as her short fingernails scratched his back and her legs tightened around his waist. She was almost to climax, her voice coming in tiny, soft whimpers that she was trying to muffle, when there was a knock on the bedroom door. “Presents!” came the voice of one of Kate’s twin brothers.

“Be there in a second, Tommy!” Kate called out in a strangled voice.

Tommy laughed. “Better hurry before Mom comes to see what the holdup is.”

“Jethro,” Kate whimpered, and he laughed low in his throat, rolling onto his back so that she was straddling him. She rose up once and slowly lowered herself back down, and he reached between them to stroke her clit.

She bit down on the side of her fist to muffle her cries of pleasure as she climaxed, and the contractions of her inner muscles brought him to his peak as well. He gripped her hips tightly as he spilled inside her, then caught her as she slumped into his arms. “Good morning,” he murmured, kissing her sweaty temple.

She chuckled. “Good morning.” Then she slowly removed herself from his person, groaning softly at the loss, and fell onto her back. “Oh, God, that was the best way to wake up ever.”

He rolled to the side, favored her with a warm, thorough kiss, and then climbed out of bed. “Come on,” he said. “The kids are waiting to open their presents. It’s not fair to make them suffer.”

She groaned in protest but climbed out of the bed anyway, wrapping up in her robe for the trip across the hall to the bathroom. She cleaned up quickly, ran a brush through her hair to bring it into some semblance of order, and then slipped back into her room. Gibbs was already dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt; she pulled on similar clothing and a pair of warm, fuzzy socks before opening the door and heading downstairs.

The entire clan was once again gathering in the living room around the tree, this time with cups of coffee rather than mugs of eggnog or cider, and Kate claimed the loveseat for herself and Gibbs before someone else could get it. He followed one of the twins into the kitchen for coffee, bringing a cup back for himself and another for Kate. She moved her feet so that he could sit down, and then draped her legs across his lap with a grin.

A few minutes later, her father entered the room, and he came quickly to her side to hug her. “Merry Christmas, Daddy,” she greeted him.

“Merry Christmas, Princess,” he returned. He took her by the shoulders, studying her face. “You know you’re the best Christmas present I could possibly get this year, right?”

She smiled, her eyes growing suspiciously bright. “Well, I guess that means I can take back the scratchy, ugly green sweater I got you, huh?”

He laughed and hugged her again. “Not a chance. I’m wearing that scratchy, ugly green sweater every day, and telling everybody how my daughter came back from the dead and gave it to me.”

Kate hugged him again to cover her discomfort at the unknowing truth of his statement, then turned and hugged her mother as well when Lena Todd entered the room. “Vidám Karácsony, Mama,” she whispered into her mother’s ear.

“Vidám Karácsony, Katya,” her mother whispered back. “Szeretlek tehát sok.” She kissed Kate’s cheek.

“I love you, too, Mama,” Kate whispered. She hugged her mother again, then Lena moved to her own chair and Kate sat back down on the loveseat, stretching her legs out over Gibbs’s lap again and giving him a watery smile. A moment later, Mary appeared, cast a sour look in Kate’s direction, and pointedly sat across the room. Tommy followed her in, dropping to a seat in the floor by Kate. She reached out and knuckled his head gently, and he grinned up at her.

“Now that everyone is here,” Colum Todd announced, “we can begin. Jamie, it’s your turn this year, isn’t it?”

“Sure is.” Tommy’s twin brother, distinguishable from him only by the Purdue sweatshirt he wore, moved to the side of the tree and began pulling boxes out. “Before anyone opens anything, the Christmas speech must be said.” He held up the first box. “Are you kids listening?”

There was a chorus of “Yes, Uncle Jamie” and “Yes, Daddy,” and Jamie nodded once.

“When you open a present,” Jamie said in a dark and foreboding voice, “you are absolutely required to keep track of the tag on it, because if you don’t send out the proper thank-you notes to whoever gave you presents, then Santa Claus won’t bring you anything next year.”

Kate gasped. “Jamie! That’s not how the Christmas speech goes!”

Jamie grinned. “Well, then, why don’t _you_ give the Christmas speech, since you know it so much better than I do?”

Kate nodded firmly and looked around at the children, who were all staring wide-eyed at her. She smiled benignly. “When you open a present,” she recited, “you are absolutely required to keep track of the tag on it, because if you don’t send out the proper thank-you notes, Santa’s elves will come and take all your presents from _this_ year away.” She turned and stuck her tongue out at Jamie. “I’ve been gone for two Christmases and _I_ still got it right.”

Gibbs was staring at her in horror. “You tell this to the children?” he asked in a low voice as the business of present-passing started in earnest.

Kate grinned. “Every year. And every year, the thank-you notes are postmarked by the twenty-seventh.”

He shook his head. “There has to be a better way to do that.”

“There probably is,” Kate agreed, “but in this family, we go in for terror and threats before sugarplums and candy.” She winked at him, and they turned to watch the mayhem.

When the first gold-wrapped package labeled _From Kate and Jethro_ was handed out, Kate’s mother stared at her. “Silly girl,” she chided her daughter. “You thought you needed to bring gifts?”

Kate smiled, blushing slightly. “Well, I thought it was the polite thing to do.”

Gibbs just rolled his eyes. In fact, once Kate had decided to go home for Christmas, she’d spent days agonizing over what to get everyone. The children had been easy to buy for; a trip to the nearest toy store had settled it. But her parents, siblings, aunts and uncles had been a different story. She had eventually gone with gift cards for the aunts, uncles and cousins, but for her immediate family, it wasn’t so easy.

She ended up buying a lot of jewelry. For her father there was a heavy gold watch; for her mother and her sister there were rosaries made of precious stones and strung on golden chains. For the twins there were matching heavy silver bracelets, and for Sean, whose job occasionally requires him to attend black-tie functions, there was a pair of diamond cufflinks. All of these gifts were received with exclamations, with the exception of Mary, who glanced into the box at her gift and then set it aside wordlessly.

Kate said nothing to her sister, but Gibbs noted the narrowing of her eyes and the dangerous air that suddenly surrounded her. Something told him that Kate was tired of putting up with her sister. He was right.

Later that afternoon, after the huge turkey was served for lunch, Kate took her jacket off the peg on the kitchen wall and shrugged into it, stepping out the back door onto the patio with an air of determination. Gibbs watched through the window, sipping coffee, as Kate approached Mary, her jaw set firmly and her hands jammed deeply into the pockets of her coat.

Unaware of her audience, Kate approached her sister. “Out with it.”

Mary turned from her contemplation of the snowy landscape and put her back against the porch railing. “Out with what?”

“Whatever it is that you need to say that will make you feel better. Whatever it is you need to say that will let you feel superior again, that will convince you that I’m wrong and you’re right. Whatever you need to say that will let you stop being such a bitch and ruining the holiday for Mom and Daddy. Say it.”

“Oh, please. Don’t even throw Mom and Daddy at me. Don’t you dare. Do you have any idea how much it hurt them, thinking you were dead? And you let us all think it for _two years_ , Kate!”

“I didn’t have a choice!” Kate snapped.

“Yeah, right!” Mary snapped back. “You _had_ to go off and let us think you were dead! Or what? The world would end?”

“You know what I do for a living, Mary! I’m one of the people that makes sure you’re safe when you go to bed at night. Do you think that’s done just by standing around and looking pretty in designer shirts and manicured nails? It requires us to give of ourselves. Sometimes, we have to give up everything. Some people give up their lives. Just because I’m not dead doesn’t mean I didn’t give up my life – I did. I lost everything when I left Washington. _Everything_. My life, my friends, my family. You have no idea how difficult it’s been for me. You don’t know _anything_ about it. So stop acting like I’ve been off on vacation or something. Either get over it, or shut the hell up.”

 

“So, you’re planning to stay in D.C.?” Buffy asked, her eyes shining.

Xander nodded. “I was kinda hoping you’d let me crash with you until I could find a place.”

“Of course I will!” Buffy leaned forward and hugged him tightly. “It’ll be great to have you here.”

He hugged her back as tightly as he could. “I’ve missed you, Buff,” he whispered softly in her ear. “Even after all the badness, you’re still my best friend.”

Buffy sniffled. “You know you’re mine.”

When they released each other, they were both wiping away tears. Buffy pushed herself up off the couch. “This requires food,” she declared. “How about some eggs?”

“I’ll rob the chicken,” Xander agreed, standing as well. “You build the fire.”

They shared a huge omelette and a pan full of fried potatoes, teasing one another and laughing over old jokes, and they had just finished loading the dishwasher again when the front doorbell rang. Buffy blinked. “Who could that be?” She wandered to the door, Xander following curiously behind, and opened it. Then she stared in shock. “Giles?”

“Happy Christmas, Buffy,” he said softly.

She stepped back to let him in, then wrapped her arms around him and hugged him. “Merry Christmas,” she said, smiling. “And surprise! I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I’m well aware,” he replied. Then he stepped aside, and Buffy saw who was standing on the doorstep.

“Willow,” she said, her voice soft but flat.

Willow looked up at her nervously. “Please, can I come in? I know I’m probably the last person you want to see, but… I kind of thought maybe it was time for us to work things out.”

 

Kate was still sitting alone on the back porch when her cell phone rang. Her sister had walked away from her without another word and gone back in the house, and she’d sent Gibbs away when he came to check on her with a gentle kiss and a soft, “I really need to be alone for a little while.”

Not that being alone helped; she flipped her phone open. “Please tell me we have an apocalypse.”

 _“I wish,”_ Buffy replied. _“It would be better than what we do have.”_

“What do we have?” Kate asked, sitting up straight.

_“Xander showed up at the house yesterday unannounced; his wife put him out and he needs a place to stay until he can find an apartment here in D.C. And then this morning Giles showed up to have Christmas, with Willow in tow. She wants to make up.”_

“I told my family I was undercover in Hungary,” Kate replied immediately, “and my sister hates my guts now even more than she did when I was just the bitch who made her not the only girl any more.”

There was a long silence, and then Buffy offered, _“Tie?”_

“You might have a slight edge,” Kate confessed. “They did show up unannounced on Christmas. Is there even any food in the house?”

_“We have half a pie, three peaches, a brand new jar of peanut butter, and something in a sour cream container that’s gone green and fuzzy.”_

“You definitely win,” Kate conceded. They shared a laugh, and then she continued. “So, Willow, huh? That’s not at all awkward.”

_“Not in the least. What am I even supposed to say to her?”_

“I’m not usually one to go for the obvious, but have you considered the notion of maybe burying the hatchet?”

Buffy was silent for so long that Kate was starting to think she’d lost her cellular connection. Finally, the Slayer spoke again, and her voice was very soft. _“I’ve thought about it,”_ she admitted. _“I miss her. I miss how we used to be good friends. But there’s so much stuff that I just don’t know if I can let go.”_

“Well, I’m no shrink, Buffy, but you do realize she’s probably got stuff she’s not really happy with you about, too, right?” Kate considered the things Buffy had told her over the course of their acquaintance and took a risk. “Think about something. When did things really start falling apart between all of you? Not your first fight or anything, but when things started getting really bad?”

Buffy considered. _“Freshman year of college,”_ she finally admitted. _“Maybe a little before that. Somewhere between senior year of high school and freshman year of college, we… we stopped trusting each other.”_

“Why?”

 _“I don’t know,”_ Buffy said softly. _“When Angel died, I ran away. I couldn’t deal, and I wanted to get out. And when I came back, everything was different. They were all mad at me, and we couldn’t seem to get back to the way we were. And then it just kept getting worse.”_

Kate nodded. “Okay. Here’s how I see it. You were wrong for running away, and they were wrong for being mad at you when you came back. Everything else that’s wrong between you all stems from that. Everyone makes mistakes, and you were kids. You reacted to things the way kids react to things. It’s time to start forgiving each other for that and moving on.”

Buffy was silent for a long moment, and when she spoke again, there was slight humor in her voice. _“How’d you get so good at this?”_

“I minored in psych,” Kate confessed. “Go make up with your friends.”

_“I will. And Kate?”_

“Yeah?”

_“Thanks.”_

Buffy hung up, and Kate smiled, slipping the phone back into her pocket and then wrapping her arms around her legs again, staring out into the back yard. “I wish I could fix all my own problems that easily.”

 

When Buffy finally went back downstairs, she moved toward the living room and stood just out of sight, watching what she could see of the people she still called her friends. Giles was holding his cup of tea like it was his lifeline; Willow was kneeling in front of Xander, examining the new eye that had been created for him by the witches in Devon.

She went back to the kitchen, retrieving a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and stood by the sink, staring out the window and considering what to say when she returned to the living room.

Finally settling on a tack, she squared her shoulders and headed toward the front of the house, stepping into the living room with the expression of someone who’s headed for the gallows. “All right,” she said softly. “We can talk. Under one condition.”

“Of course,” Willow said immediately.

“The minute this turns into a blame-Buffy fest, you’re gone. I’ll take responsibility for things I did, but you’d better be willing to shoulder some yourself. You guys stood in my living room in Sunnydale and had the nerve to accuse me of being something horrible when all I’d been trying to do was exactly what everyone wanted me to do, and I let you. I let you kick me out of my own house when it should have been the other way around. You had no right. Today I know better, and I’m not gonna let you treat me that way any more. Okay?”

Willow opened her mouth to speak, but Giles beat her to it. “Absolutely,” he said firmly. “You are correct; what was done in Sunnydale was wrong, and it should never have happened.” He held up a finger when Willow and Xander both started to protest. “I’m not saying that under the circumstances it isn’t _understandable_. Everyone was looking for someone to blame, and Buffy as the apparent leader of our group was the natural target. When things go bad, the blame always goes to the top. _However_ , understandable and right are two different things. And Buffy is correct in what she says. What was done to her was wrong.”

There was a long moment of silence in which Xander and Willow stared at one another. Buffy folded her arms across her chest to hide the shaking of her hands, wondering if she would be forced to completely end one or both friendships today. Finally, though, Xander nodded. “You’re right, Giles,” he said finally. “It was wrong. We were wrong in what we did.”

“So was I,” Buffy said immediately, more eager than she herself had known to finally heal this rift between them.

“I’m sorry about Dawnie,” Willow blurted out suddenly. “Buffy, I really am. I think about her all the time and I miss her every day, and I wish I’d let you talk me out of doing that spell.”

“I probably couldn’t have talked her out of it,” Buffy conceded. “She was so eager to find out if she could finally just be a normal person.”

As though these admissions had opened floodgates, suddenly they were all apologizing to one another for everything that they could think of, dating back to events that had taken place in the first year they had known each other. By the time they were done, all three of them were crying, and suddenly they turned almost as a group to Giles and began apologizing for things they had done to him.

By the time night fell, all four of them were a mess, and Buffy finally declared a halt to the proceedings. “If this keeps up, we’ll all be apologizing for the Lindbergh baby and Kennedy’s assassination,” she said decisively. “I’ve got an idea. Let’s get cleaned up and go out for something to eat.”

“Will anything be open on Christmas?” Xander wondered.

“It’s Washington, Xander. Just about everything will be open.”

 

As the sun began to set over Indiana, the back door of the Todd house opened and Lena Todd stepped out onto her back porch with something cupped in her hand. She pulled the sliding door shut behind her and turned to study her returned daughter with worried eyes.

Lena was an intelligent woman who, before emigrating to the United States, had been educated at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. She was twenty-three years old when she emigrated, and had lived in Indianapolis and its surrounding areas since then, exposed to people and belief systems more cosmopolitan than she and hers. But education and exposure cannot ever truly dispel the beliefs of childhood which are held bone-deep and which were imparted by generations of elders who believed them as well.

She moved to sit on the park bench next to her daughter, her eyes following Kate’s gaze out into the empty back yard. “Tell me of Hungary, Katya,” she said softly in her mother tongue.

“I can’t say much,” Kate replied, also in Hungarian. “I spent a lot of time holed up in a little –”

“Katya,” Lena interrupted her, “tell me the truth.”

Kate’s lips compressed into a thin line. “I can’t,” she finally said softly.

Lena nodded once, then took her daughter’s hand in hers and pressed something small into it. “Eat this,” she said quietly.

Kate looked down into her hand, cocked an eyebrow and looked up at her mother. “Garlic?”

“Can you?” her mother challenged her. “Can you eat it?”

“Of course I can,” Kate replied. “But why would I?”

“Because I am your mother, and I am asking you to.”

In Lena’s other hand, Kate caught a glimpse of the jeweled rosary she’d given her mother for Christmas, and suddenly put two and two together. “You think I’m a vampire?” she asked, incredulous.

“I am not a fool, Katya,” Lena replied. “Before you were buried I saw your body. I touched you with my hands. I held you the day that you were born, and I held you after you died, and I know. I know. You may fool everyone else, even your sister Mary, but you do not fool your mother. I know.”

With a slight, pained smile, Kate stuck the garlic clove into her mouth, bit down, chewed, and swallowed. Then she reached out and took the rosary from her mother and held it between her palms for a long moment before opening her hands, displaying the unburned flesh there. “See, Mama?” she said softly. “I’m not a vampire.”

“You are a witch, then.” Lena cocked her head. “I do not understand how you could be a witch. You have no extra fingers or toes, and you were not born with a caul.”

Kate snorted. “Mama, please,” she said, switching to English. “Do I look like Baba Yaga to you?” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Not everything supernatural that happens comes from the Devil, you know.”

Lena was silent for a moment, then finally spoke again. “Explain yourself.”

Kate sighed. “Think about it, Mama. What else is there that’s more powerful than Satan?”

“God, of course,” Lena replied, then she paused. “Do you mean to tell me that this has been an actual miracle?”

Miracle, accident of witchcraft, whatever. Kate almost laughed. “I guess that’s the best explanation I have,” she finally said. She sat back on the bench. “All I know is, I lost almost three years and everyone I know says I was dead. I don’t remember any of it, but Tony and Gibbs were there when it happened. They said I took a bullet right to the forehead. But here I am, alive. I can’t explain it, but I didn’t dig myself out of a grave or anything else. I just… happened.”

“This cannot be true,” Lena said softly, her voice begging for some explanation. “Such things do not simply _happen_.”

“But it did,” Gibbs’s voice cut across the quiet. “I was there, Mrs. Todd. I know what happened.”

Both women turned, Lena looking surprised and wary, Kate looking stormy with the beginnings of anger. Gibbs shrugged at her. “I wasn’t eavesdropping,” he defended himself. “I went out the front door for a walk and I just came around this side of the house.”

“Tell me what you know,” Lena demanded. “I will hear it all.”

Gibbs nodded, moving around to lean against the porch railing in front of the two women. “This happened in the middle of August,” he began. “Came into the office one morning with DiNozzo, business as usual, and there stands Kate arguing with Ziva over the desk. Ziva sits where Kate used to sit. And Kate looks up at me and wants me to make Ziva get out of her desk.” He paused and gave a soft laugh. “Probably don’t have to tell you how crazy I thought I’d gone, seeing a ghost or something, but Ziva and DiNozzo saw her, too. Then DiNozzo pokes her in the shoulder and she has a fit, and I knew. It was Kate. Didn’t know how or why – still don’t, not really – but here’s Kate. I watched her die, and then she came back to life.”

Lena was silent for a very long time, her fingers worrying the beads of the rosary in her hand. Finally she spoke again. “I must consider this,” she said finally. “I may need to speak to the priest.”

Kate nodded, her shoulders slumping just a little. “Of course,” she said finally.

Lena stood and went back into the house. As the door closed, Kate put her head in her hands and simply sat there, looking lost and dejected. Gibbs moved to sit beside her, wanting to offer his support but not really knowing how to handle the situation. She leaned against him and he put his arm around her, and it was only then that he realized that she was shivering. “Kate,” he asked, “how long have you been out here?”

She shrugged. “Most of the day.”

“Let’s go inside,” he said gently, moving to help her up off the bench. She refused to move. “Katie, come on. It’s too cold out here.”

She shook her head, then looked up at him, her eyes sadder than he’d ever seen them before. “Are you too tired to drive?”

“No,” he replied, wondering what she was up to.

She nodded, then finally stood. “I want to go home,” she said softly.

He pulled her into his arms and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “If that’s what you want, we’ll go.”

Leaving was easier than arriving; outside of the gifts for Kate’s family, neither of them had brought more luggage than what would fit inside a gym bag. They collected their things, leaving Kate’s room as neat as it had been when they arrived, and headed downstairs, Kate managing their descent as neatly as any covert operation. She had neither intent nor desire to say goodbye to anyone and have to explain their sudden and early departure.

They were tossing their bags into the back seat of Kate’s car when a male voice spoke up from behind them, startling Kate so badly that she nearly fell down on the snowy driveway. “Leaving so soon?”

Kate turned. “Sean,” she said, trying not to sound like her heart was going a hundred miles a minute. “You startled me.”

“So I see.” He gestured to the car. “You’re not even gonna say goodbye?”

“No – I mean, yes, but – I just –”

“You just had to get the hell out of here,” he finished for her, but there was no anger or judgment in his voice. He was simply stating a fact. “It’s all too much for you, you can’t deal, and you’re running away.”

“Well, I –” she paused, then sighed. “Yes.”

“Mary or Mom?”

“Both.”

Sean stepped forward and wrapped her in a hug. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too,” she replied, her voice thick with the tears that shimmered in her eyes. “I never thought Mom would… but I guess some things are unforgivable.”

“I disagree,” Sean replied, wiping her tears away. “You say you didn’t have a choice in going away, Midget, I believe you. And I don’t think there’s anything to forgive. I’m too busy being glad you’re back to spend time being mad at you. And Tommy and Jamie feel the same way I do. So does Dad.”

Kate nodded slightly. “Thanks,” she said softly.

“It’s not enough to get you to stay, is it?”

She shook her head wordlessly, and Sean sighed. “At least let the others come out and say goodbye.”

“Sean, I really –”

“You really need to let Dad and the twins say goodbye,” Sean said in a tone that did not brook any refusal. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone, dialing a number and speaking into the phone when it was answered. “You and Jamie and Dad need to get out to the driveway if you want to see Katie before she leaves.”

Within minutes, the other three Todd men were standing there and Kate was hugging them all. “No,” she kept saying. “No, I have to go. I can’t stay. I just can’t.”

“Look,” Tommy said, “if this is about Mary –”

“It’s not, okay?” Kate said, sniffling. “Not just Mary, anyway. I just think it would be better if I left.”

Colum Todd embraced his daughter once more. “Katie,” he said softly, “if you think it’s best, then you go. But you remember that your Dad loves you, and you are always welcome in this house, no matter what anyone else says. Understand?”

Kate nodded. “I know, Daddy.”

He kissed her forehead. “Go, then, if that’s what you have to do. You’ll call me when you get home safe.”

She nodded. “I will; I promise.”

Her brothers took turns hugging her again, and then the four of them stepped back and Kate slipped into the passenger seat of the car, puling the door shut. Colum looked across the car at Gibbs. “You take care of her,” he said flatly.

“I will,” Gibbs replied. Colum nodded, then Gibbs climbed into the car and started the engine. The Todd men waved as the car pulled out of the driveway, and Kate waved back until they turned the corner. Then she leaned her head against the glass of the window, closed her eyes, and let the tears come.

Kate’s cell phone rang just after they crossed the Ohio state line, and Kate almost didn’t answer it when she recognized her parents’ phone number. Finally, though, she gritted her teeth on the third ring and flipped the phone open. “Hello?”

_“Where did you go? Mom’s freaking out!”_

“I’m going home, Mary,” Kate replied, her voice flat. “You’ve made it more than obvious that you don’t want me around, so I’m giving you what you want. Merry Christmas.”

_“So you just leave without saying anything to anyone? Real mature, Kate!”_

Kate felt something inside her snap. “You know what, Mary? Take your attitude and stuff it up your ass. Just for your information, I said goodbye to Dad and the boys, and if you weren’t such a horrendous bitch, I’d have said goodbye to you, too. You know what? Screw you, Mary. I came back from the _dead_ and all you can do is bitch about how I had the nerve to die in the first place. How _dare_ Kate take a bullet to the fucking head from some terrorist and die trying to save people’s lives! And how _dare_ Kate have the nerve to come back from the dead and try to get her life and family back! Well, guess what, Mary – I’ve been dead! I don’t care about your issues any more.” She paused, then suddenly sighed heavily. “I just don’t care any more. Don’t call me again, Mary. I don’t want to talk to you any more.” She hung up, then turned the phone off and tossed it into the glove compartment.

They drove in silence for about ten minutes before Gibbs spoke. “You… realize you just blew your whole cover story, right?”

“I know,” Kate replied, sounding slightly chagrined. “I kind of lost my head.”

“Noticed that.”

They stopped for the night in Dayton, Ohio, and Kate turned her phone on to call her father. She had three missed calls from her parents’ home, though no messages had been left, and she sighed, dialing the familiar number. Her mother answered, and she sat silently for a moment, debating whether to speak or hang up.

After two hellos, Lena Todd suddenly knew who was on the phone. “Katya,” she said softly, “I am sorry that I made you feel that I did not want you here.”

Kate swallowed thickly. “Me, too, Mama,” she said softly, her free hand curling into a fist.

“Your father knows,” Lena said softly. “He knew as well as I did that you were dead.”

“He doesn’t care,” Kate whispered. “He doesn’t care why I came back. He’s just glad I’m here.”

“I am not like your father,” Lena replied. “I was raised to believe in the _vurdurlak_ and in Baba Yaga. I was taught that these things are real. So to know that you were dead, and then to see you alive again, it said to me that these stories were true. What else was I to believe?”

“I don’t know.” Kate’s eyes met Gibbs’s as he came out of the motel bathroom. “I don’t know, Mama. But you don’t have to automatically accuse me of being something filthy and evil just because something happened that not even I understand.”

“I am sorry,” Lena said again.

Kate nodded. “Me, too, Mama.” She closed the phone without another word, turning it off again, and waited until Gibbs climbed into the bed next to her to roll into his arms and wrap her arms around him.

“Anything I can do to help?” he asked, fairly certain that there wasn’t.

“No. Just hold onto me,” she told him, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Just don’t let me go.”

He tightened his arms around her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Don’t worry, Katie,” he murmured into her hair. “I’m never letting you go again.”

 

Willow was cooking something in the kitchen when Gibbs and Kate came in from the garage the next day, and she hugged them both when they arrived. “Buffy said you went to your mom’s,” she said, studying Kate with worried eyes. “How’d that go?”

“Could have gone better,” Kate confessed. She tossed her duffel into the utility room to deal with the laundry later, and went across the kitchen to the telephone, dialing her parents’ number to tell her father that she was home safe.

Sean answered the phone. _“Hello,”_ he drawled.

“Hey, Sean,” Kate said. “I’m just calling to tell Dad I’m home.”

 _“Oh, sure. Hang on a sec.”_ There was a long moment of silence, and then another voice came onto the line.

 _“You are not evil,”_ Lena Todd said firmly. _“I believe that. I believe that you are a miracle, and that God has restored you to me. I do not know why, and I may never, but I am satisfied with that knowledge. You are my daughter, and I love you. No matter what. All right?”_

Kate felt herself begin to smile for the first time in two days. “All right. I love you, too, Mama.”

_“Good. Here is your father.”_

_“Katie? That you?”_ her father’s voice asked.

“It’s me, Daddy. I’m home, and all in one piece.”

_“Good, good. We’ll be to see you before long, all right?”_

“Sure, Daddy. Just let me know when you’re coming.” They chatted for a few more minutes, and when Kate hung up, she was truly smiling. Gibbs, who was sitting at the table having a beer with Xander, raised an eyebrow. Kate moved to sit beside him. “My mother’s decided she’s okay with it.”

“Good.” He squeezed her hand, grinning as she stole his beer and took a sip of it. “Xander says McGee’s coming for dinner.”

“Good!” Kate exclaimed. “I’ve missed Tim.”

“You can’t have him,” Buffy stated from the doorway, where she stood with the topic of conversation just behind her, his arms around her waist.

“I don’t want him,” Kate replied, grinning at Tim to take any potential sting out of her words. “I’ve got my own.” She looked around. “I thought you said Giles was here.”

“He ran to the store,” Buffy replied. “Something about proper Christmas crackers; apparently the British whatchamacallit store has them on fifty percent off.”

A shout from the front of the house had Kate shouting back; a moment later, Tony DiNozzo poked his head into the room. “Hey,” he greeted everyone. “McGeek said he was coming over here, and since I was back in town early, I thought I’d crash the party.”

“Did you bring food?” Kate asked.

“I brought beer and friends,” Tony replied, stepping into the kitchen to reveal that he was accompanied by an exuberant Abby and an uncomfortable-looking Ziva. Kate and Buffy immediately got up to retrieve more chairs and a card table from the garage, and the group settled around the now-cramped kitchen, sharing their stories of the holiday and passing beers around.

When the meal was served, no one commented about how amazing it was that a meal which couldn’t have been planned for more than five was suddenly feeding ten; they simply praised the cooks and dug into their food. Giles’s proper crackers provided much mirth after the meal, and when the hour grew late, Kate stated firmly that everyone had been drinking and there was plenty of room in the house, so no one was driving.

Xander and Willow crashed in Xander’s room; Abby and Ziva took Sofie’s bed. Giles took the couch, Tony sacked out in one of the recliners, and Kate and Buffy stopped in the hallway to say good night to one another before going to their respective rooms with their respective boyfriends. “Holiday turn out better than you expected?” Buffy asked, noting the smile on Kate’s face.

“Much,” Kate replied. “How about you?”

“Entirely.” The Slayer grinned, then reached out and hugged Kate. “I’m glad you offered to watch my back,” she said softly. “You’ve been the best friend I could ask for.”

“You haven’t been so shabby yourself,” Kate replied, squeezing back. “Go to bed; Tim’s probably wondering what’s taking us so long.”

“Like Gibbs isn’t?” Buffy replied.

Laughing, the two women parted and went to bed.

\--THE END--


End file.
